Benzinga | Sep 15, 2021 12:33AM EDT

Billionaire Investor Steven Cohen Deepens Cryptocurrency Bet, To Fund Quant Trading Firm Radkl

Billionaire investor Steven Cohen has agreed to invest in Radkl, a cryptocurrency quantitative-trading firm being launched by partners of New York-based GTS, a high-speed trading firm active in stocks and options.

What Happened Cohen is expected to provide financial backing for Radkl but will not be involved in the company's day-to-day operations, GTS said in a statement. The size of Cohen's investment was not disclosed.

Radki will initially focus on quantitative trading across cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC), and plans to expand into the decentralized finance or DeFi segment over time.

Separately, Recur, a startup focused on non fungible tokens (NFTs), said it has raised $50 million in a Series A funding round led by Digital, a metaverse investment platform backed by Cohen's family office. Cohen will also join Recur's board.

See Also: How To Buy NFTs

Why It Matters Cohen, the billionaire founder of hedge fund Point72 Asset Management and owner of the New York Mets, has recently shown increasing interest in cryptocurrencies.

The fund last month made its first cryptocurrency bet by leading a Series A funding round for data and research service provider Messari.

Point72 was among the hedge funds that recorded huge losses amid the sharp uptick in shares of GameStop Corp. (NYSE:GME) and other Reddit-favorite stocks in January this year.

Price Action: Bitcoin is up 4.6% during the past 24 hours, trading at $47,095.20 at press time.

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