Stephen Cohen, the hedge fund billionaire, is building an investment firm whose main focus will be cryptocurrencies, revealed sources familiar with the matter.
The sources further disclosed that the new firm is in its initial stage and intends to trade spot cryptocurrencies. Point72 Asset Management, a multi-tragedy hedge fund firm of Cohen, still hasn’t explored that spectrum. Cohen’s multinational fund Point72 was reopened in 2018 to external investors following a two-year ban and started accepting outside capital. Currently, Point72 has approx. $26.1 billion in assets under management. The company is looking to hire a bunch of candidates for its own developing internal crypto operations. The new initiative will seek to write checks to outside digital asset-focused hedge fund managers. It also includes possible seed deals.
The name of Cohen’s latest venture remains unknown. However, it is being said that Cohen himself had played a major role in its formation, which will require a huge capital in on-boarding new people. The latest move by Cohen indicates his bullishness on crypto assets. An increasing number of rich traditional traders are investing big money in the emerging space as the market recovers from the recent market crash.
Cohen’s latest firm will also delve into decentralized finance projects such as yield farming beside crypto spot trading. It also seeks to dip its hand in staking, which is receiving quite the attention as Ethereum’s transition to proof-of-stake approaches. With his latest firm, Cohen is creating a base for a future broad-based crypto trading platform. All-in-all it can be considered as an extension of Cohen’s angel investments into blockchain firms.
Cohen recently backed out of an earlier announced plan for a personal investment in Radkl, a crypto trading firm, earlier this month. This raised concerns that he is slowly decreasing his involvement in the industry due to the crypto crash.
Source: https://www.thecoinrepublic.com/2022/08/13/hedge-fund-billionaire-stephen-cohen-is-building-a-crypto-only-asset-manager/