Twitter Investor ARK Cuts Stake by 47%; Ripple Win Against SEC Galvanises Crypto Trading

by Hannah Dillon on 18th Jul 2023 in News

In today's ExchangeWire news digest: ARK Investment Management cuts back its stake in Twitter; crypto trading skyrockets after Ripple Labs' victory against the US SEC; and Lemon8's American user base plummets.

Twitter investor ARK writes down stake

ARK Investment Management, which owns a small stake in Twitter through its venture fund, has lowered its stake in the company by 47%. The move comes as the Elon Musk-owned platform contends with debt and dwindling advertiser spend. Despite the reduction, ARK CEO Cathie Wood expressed a bullish outlook on the social media site’s future. Wood commented, “The write-down is not representative of our fundamental outlook and belief in the long-term return on investment we believe that it will have for our shareholders.”

Crypto trading soars after Ripple victory

Areas of the cryptocurrency market have seen trading spike after a digital asset developer’s legal victory over the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Ripple Labs Inc. was accused by the SEC of violating securities law by selling its XRP token on exchanges. The case was dismissed by a US court on Thursday (13th July), a move which could give hope to other players in the US digital assets industry.

US interest in Lemon8 sours

Lemon8, sister app to TikTok, is reportedly seeing its popularity with American users fade. ByteDance launched the app in the US in February this year, at a time where regulators in the country debated banning TikTok over privacy concerns. While Lemon8 quickly made its way to the top 10 most downloaded apps in Apple’s App Store, its daily active users swiftly dropped from 11,930 to 6,360, with users complaining the app’s content feels repetitive and overly-curated.