ARK Venture Fund (ARKVX), tokenized by Securitize

Review open since 2026-10-02: Open item: Re-read the ark-venture-fund eligibility file: its issuer documents changed. A draft revision dated 2026-10-02 is under audit. The verdict stands until the review closes.

Summary

Ketju does not approve ARKVX: the token puts Securitize Markets, a broker-dealer, between the holder and ARK Venture Fund, charges 2% at entry, and lets Securitize freeze or take any balance. A direct Class D share of the same fund carries none of these costs and has the same quarterly repurchase. Securitize Markets issues ARKVX on Ethereum against Class D shares that it buys and holds at BNY Mellon. ARK Investment Management runs the fund, a registered closed-end interval fund. The fund held $1.18 billion on 31 July 2026, and 62% of it was in private companies such as SpaceX, OpenAI, Anthropic and Stripe. ARK and Securitize announced the token on 24 September 2026. The token gives no faster way to sell, no market and no DeFi use at launch. On 21 September 2026 the SEC let the fund issue a tokenized share class on its own shareholder list. The fund has not registered that class, and ARKVX is a different product.

Review triggers
• The fund registers the Tokenized Class and Securitize moves ARKVX holders onto the fund’s own shareholder list
• Securitize drops the 2% transaction charge, and the owner key 0x59c1…76ee and the registrar key 0x62c8…50f3 move to a multisig with a delay
• The fund prorates a quarterly repurchase, offers less than 5%, or pays later than seven calendar days
• Securitize freezes, seizes, or burns a holder’s ARKVX, or its page stops saying the token is an entitlement to shares held at BNY Mellon

Ketju checks this memo every night. A review opened on 2026-10-02 and appears under the verdict above. The verdict stands until the review closes.

Research

What the holder owns

Securitize’s page says: “Each token is backed 1:1 by ARK Venture Fund shares that Securitize Markets buys and holds in custody at BNY Mellon. Your token is an entitlement to that underlying position.” BNY Mellon Investment Servicing (US) Inc. keeps the fund’s shareholder list, and the name on that list is Securitize Markets. The wallet does not appear on it. The holder therefore owns a claim on a broker-dealer’s custody position. The SEC staff’s January 2026 statement calls this the third-party custodial model. Securitize Markets is a SIPC member, so SIPC covers the shares in its custody if the broker fails. Nothing covers the fund’s own losses.

Fees

Securitize’s page names the class: “ARK Venture Fund, Class D (ARKVX).” Class D carries no sales load and a 0.15% distribution and service fee. Its total expenses are 3.49%, or 2.90% after ARK’s reimbursement, and that figure includes a 2.75% management fee. Securitize also takes 2% of each deposit before the order is priced. Each share votes, and the fund distributes once a year and reinvests by default. The documents we read do not state how votes and distributions reach a token holder through Securitize Markets. Etherscan showed 81.626 tokens in 10 wallets on 25 September 2026. That is about $4,900 at the $60.49 NAV Securitize posted for 24 September.

How it works

ARK Venture Fund is a Delaware statutory trust registered under the 1940 Act as a non-diversified closed-end interval fund. It began on 23 September 2022 and sells shares every day at NAV through platforms and intermediaries. Its Form N-PORT for 31 July 2026 reports $1,184,177,831 of net assets. Securitize’s page cites ARK at 30 June 2026. It lists SpaceX at 13.8% of the fund, OpenAI 6.3%, Anthropic 4.6%, Stripe 4.4% and Kalshi 2.9%, with 62% in private companies. The adviser values the private stakes by its own procedures between funding rounds. The daily NAV therefore moves in steps when a company raises money or the adviser marks it, and it does not follow the market. The fund may borrow, and the prospectus budgets 0.04% a year of interest. The fund pays a management fee of 2.75% of net assets and no carried interest. Securitize’s page reports Class D returns to 30 June 2026, net of fees: 84.8% over one year and 36.1% a year over three years.

Eligibility

Anyone may buy the fund. Its prospectus sets a $500 minimum for every class and lets the fund waive it, and IRAs and ERISA plans may buy. Securitize’s page says the token “is currently offered to US investors only.” It also says the fund “is open to investors regardless of accreditation or qualification,” so no investor test applies. The holder opens a Securitize account with a photo ID, approves a wallet and deposits USDC. Securitize deducts 2%, the order is priced at that day’s NAV, and tokens arrive the next business day. Later deposits can be $5. Tokens move only between wallets Securitize has approved, and Securitize’s page states that open trading “isn’t available at launch.”

Withdrawals

The holder can redeem only through the fund’s repurchase offer. Each March, June, September and December the fund offers to buy back 5% of its shares at NAV and may add 2%. It prorates when holders tender more, and it pays within seven calendar days of the pricing date. The September 2026 offer ran from 2 to 30 September. Securitize passes the holder’s request into that window and returns unfilled units to the wallet. A direct Class D shareholder gets the same window through a brokerage, with no 2% charge.

Who controls it

ARKVX is Securitize’s DS-protocol token behind an ERC1967 proxy, verified on Sourcify on 15 September 2026. One plain key, 0x59c1…76ee, owns the token contract. The same key owns Securitize’s Hamilton Lane feeder tokens. The verified code lets the owner issue tokens, pause every transfer, burn or seize any balance, and replace the implementation. A second plain key, 0x62c8…50f3, owns the wallet registrar. Through the registrar it controls the blacklist and the lock manager, which decide which wallets may hold and which are frozen. Securitize’s own prospectus says its “smart contracts provide mechanisms to seize or burn tokens to remediate these situations.” No multisig or delay guards any of these powers. Securitize’s page states that the token “remains attributed to you and controlled by your wallet rather than by Securitize”. That is true of the private key. In the contract, Securitize can lock or take the balance without the holder’s key.

SEC order

On 21 September 2026 the SEC granted ARK Venture Fund an amended multi-class order, Release IC-36333. It permits “a class of tokenized shares traded on one or more alternative trading systems.” The application describes that class: ownership “recorded using distributed ledger technology,” held only in whitelisted wallets and issued by the fund at NAV. It would be distributed “either by registered broker-dealers or directly by the Fund’s transfer agent.” Holders of that class would appear on the fund’s own shareholder list. The fund has not registered it. Its N-2 amendment filed 24 September 2026 lists classes D, S, U and X only. The same filing again postpones, to 23 October 2026, the amendment that adds Class X, an exchange-listed class planned for the Texas Stock Exchange. The press release that day says only that ARK and Securitize “announce the tokenization of the ARK Venture Fund (ARKVX) through Securitize.” Securitize’s page shows what that means: a broker-dealer holds Class D shares and issues a token against them. The order does not change this token today. If the fund issues the Tokenized Class and moves holders onto its own list, Ketju will review this memo again.

Comparison

The direct Class D share has the same 5% quarterly repurchase, the same NAV and the same fund fees. Against it, the token costs 2% more at entry and puts Securitize Markets between the holder and the fund. It also gives Securitize keys that can freeze or take the balance. In return the token offers self-custody of a receipt, USDC funding and a promise of DeFi use later, which needs relief the SEC has not given. Among the Securitize funds Ketju has reviewed, ARKVX is the first open to retail investors. It is also the first that wraps a registered fund the holder could buy directly elsewhere.

Verdict

The evidence weighs against the token, and Ketju does not approve it. We did not assess whether a given client may hold it, because the defect is in the token structure. A client who wants ARK Venture Fund can buy Class D through a brokerage. Ketju will review the memo again if Securitize drops the 2% charge and moves the owner and registrar keys behind a multisig with a delay. Ketju will also review it if the fund issues the Tokenized Class on its own shareholder list.

Sources

Each claim above comes from one of these sources. Where Ketju could not verify a number, the memo states that.

• Securitize: ARKVX, ARK Venture Fund tokenized (securitize.io/arkvx; the page is an app whose copy ships in the bundle main.9eec3a48.js, read 2026-09-25) · primary · accessed 2026-09-25
  Supports: token is an entitlement to shares Securitize Markets holds at BNY Mellon, open regardless of accreditation, controlled by your wallet, no open trading at launch, quarterly window, prorated, Securitize Markets SIPC member
• PR Newswire: ARK Invest Tokenizes ARK Venture Fund (ARKVX) with Securitize (2026-09-24) · primary · accessed 2026-09-25
  Supports: announcement date, announce the tokenization through Securitize, Ethereum, shares not listed
• SEC EDGAR: ARK Venture Fund, prospectus and statement of additional information, Form N-2 post-effective amendment No. 4 (2025-10-27) · primary · accessed 2026-09-25
  Supports: Delaware statutory trust, interval fund, $500 minimum, may be waived, IRAs and ERISA plans may buy, quarterly repurchase of 5% to 25%, March, June, September, December, payment within seven days, one vote per share, annual distributions, DRP by default, BNY Mellon Investment Servicing as transfer agent, 2.75% management fee, Class D 0.15% fee, 3.49% and 2.90% expenses, 0.04% interest budget
• SEC EDGAR: ARK Venture Fund, notification of quarterly repurchase offer, Form N-23C3A (2026-09-02) · primary · accessed 2026-09-25
  Supports: 5% offer, offer period 2026-09-02 to 2026-09-30, up to 2% more, pro rata, paid within seven calendar days
• SEC: ARK Venture Fund and ARK Investment Management LLC, order under section 6(c), Investment Company Act Release No. 36333 (2026-09-21) · primary · accessed 2026-09-25
  Supports: class of tokenized shares traded on ATSs, order date
• SEC EDGAR: ARK Venture Fund, amended application for exemptive relief, Form 40-APP/A (2026-08-07) · primary · accessed 2026-09-25
  Supports: ownership recorded using distributed ledger technology, whitelisted wallets, distributed by broker-dealers or the transfer agent, issued at NAV
• SEC EDGAR: ARK Venture Fund, Form N-2 post-effective amendment No. 10 (2026-09-24) · primary · accessed 2026-09-25
  Supports: Class X delayed to 2026-10-23, classes D, S, U, X only, Texas Stock Exchange listing planned
• SEC EDGAR: ARK Venture Fund, Form N-PORT for 2026-07-31 · primary · accessed 2026-09-25
  Supports: net assets $1,184,177,831
• SEC EDGAR: Securitize Corp. (Securitize Holdings) prospectus, Form 424(b)(3), 7 August 2026 · primary · accessed 2026-09-25
  Supports: seize or burn
• Etherscan: ARK Venture Fund (ARKVX) token on Ethereum · secondary · accessed 2026-09-25
  Supports: 81.626 tokens, 10 holders, ERC1967 proxy
• Verified ARKVX implementation on Ethereum, DSToken (Sourcify) · primary · accessed 2026-09-25
  Supports: verified 2026-09-15, issueTokens, burn and seize, pause, upgradeToAndCall
• SEC Divisions of Corporation Finance, Investment Management, and Trading and Markets: Statement on Tokenized Securities, January 28, 2026 · primary · accessed 2026-09-25
  Supports: third-party custodial model

The asset and the chain

This memo covers the protocol. A position also holds an asset and settles on a chain. Whichever of the three holds the most power over the position decides who can freeze it. These tables describe control and do not judge quality.