Billionaire Steve Cohen Removes Investment from Crypto Startup Radkl

Billionaire Steve Cohen has removed his investment from cryptocurrency trading startup Radkl.

Prior to the hedge fund billionaire's exit, the trading firm had already lost at least two managing directors this year, including Jim Greco and Beatrice O'Carroll.

The quantitative crypto trading firm was just formed last year by New York Stock Exchange market maker GTS. 

On Radkl's website, only five employees are listed, including O'Carroll. However, O'Carroll already confirmed with Bloomberg that she had left the company.

"Radkl remains extremely well capitalized with its current investors and continues to grow rapidly," the spokesperson told Bloomberg.

Cohen is a Wall Street titan who also owns the New York Mets baseball team, and his support for Radkl had made top headlines last September. Additionally, his entry into the crypto sector was seen as a sign of the traditional finance world's increasing interest in the industry.

However, investors such as Cohen have backed off from the crypto sector this year as there has been a slump in digital assets and a series of crises such as the LUNA crash.

Besides Radkl, Cohen's other crypto investment included his family office - Cohen Private Ventures - involvement in a funding round last year for non-fungible token (NFT) firm Recur.

According to Sept 2021 report from the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), a spokeswoman for Cohen had said that the investment in Radkl had come from his personal capacity and not through his hedge-fund firm - Point72 Asset Management LP.

She had further added that Cohen wouldn't be involved in the startup's day-to-day operations.

The WSJ also said that in August 2021, Point72's venture-capital arm had invested in crypto data and analytics provider Messari.

During the heyday of the crypto industry last year, other hedge fund billionaires such as Paul Tudor Jones and Stanley Druckenmiller also publicly embraced crypto, which further helped fuel a rally in digital currencies.

Image source: Shutterstock