Billionaire Steve Cohen Exits Crypto Startup

Billionaire hedge fund manager and New York Mets owner Steve Cohen has exited his investment in cryptocurrency startup Radkl.

What Happened: A spokesperson from the company told Bloomberg that the quantitative crypto trading firm “remains well capitalized” despite Cohen’s departure.

Earlier this year, two of the firm’s managing directors Jim Greco and Beatrice O’Carroll left the company. 

A representative from Cohen’s hedge fund Point72 Asset Management declined to comment on the development to Bloomberg.

Cohen was one of the heavyweight Wall Street investors that jumped into crypto-related investments during the bull run last year. The investor first announced his investment in Radkl in September 2021 when Bitcoin BTC/USD was trading above $48,000.

Two months later, BTC went on to hit an all-time high ahead of $69,000. At press time, the leading digital asset was trading at 66% below its peak at $22,925.

Despite Bitcoin and the wider crypto market losing steam in 2022, some venture capital firms have continued to bet big on the space.

In May 2022, Silicon Valley-based Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) announced it had raised $4.5 billion for a new crypto fund.

“We think we are now entering the golden era of Web3. Programmable blockchains are sufficiently advanced, and a diverse range of apps have reached tens of millions of users,” said a16z partner Chris Dixon at the time.