GMO Financial Holdings Buys 10% of Crypto Hedge Fund AWR Capital

GMO Financial Holdings, an investor in crypto and foreign-exchange margin trading businesses, bought a 10% stake in AWR Capital, a multi-strategy crypto hedge fund, according to a statement shared with CoinDesk on Monday. The price wasn't disclosed.

AWR, which is based in London, will become a market maker at one of Japan's largest FX and digital-assets exchanges, GMO Coin, a subsidiary of GMO Financial Holdings, AWR said. Market makers are entities tasked with providing liquidity on an exchange by creating buy and sell orders.

"Our investment will allow AWR to build out its services and solutions to span multiple asset classes and strategies," Tomitaka Ishimura, chief operating officer at GMO Financial Holdings, said in the statement.

Last year, GMO Coin ranked ninth on Forbes Digital Assets' list of the world's largest crypto exchanges, rated according to several criteria, including regulatory compliance, cybersecurity provisions and trading fees.

AWR also said it appointed Phillip Gillespie, an algorithmic trading veteran and former CEO of crypto market maker B2C2, as managing partner to lead its business development strategy and expand the fund's operations.

Gillespie's "systematic trading expertise and extensive industry network will be of immense value to our firm as we build out multi-asset financial services offering," Dave Askey, managing partner and founder of AWR Capital, said.