Happy April Fools day to those who celebrate (don’t believe anything online today).

AI is Eating Crypto’s Lunch (For Now)

February was the biggest month in venture capital history. $189 billion deployed globally. Let that sink in for a second.

Now here’s the uncomfortable part: 83% of it went to three companies. OpenAI ($110B), Anthropic ($30B), and Waymo ($16B). Together, those three rounds totaled $156 billion… roughly a third of ALL global venture capital deployed across ALL of 2025 ($425B per Crunchbase). In a single month.

If you’re thinking it’s “All AI”... Yes, it is. AI-related startups captured 90% of February’s global venture funding: $171 billion. The remaining 10%, ~ $18B, was left for literally everything else. Every sector. Every geography. Every stage.

Looking at Crypto Venture fundraising we have $1B in February, $3B in March ($1.6B of that to Kalshi / Polymarket). The gap in capital gravity is hard to ignore.

Per Messari’s fundraising overview, crypto VC funding (capital raised) rose ~23% year-over-year through March 2026, but the number of deals fell ~46%... bigger checks to fewer companies, with the average round climbing ~220% to $34.7M. Active crypto investors declined ~35% to 3,122. Capital is concentrating everywhere, but the magnitude of concentration in AI is on a completely different level.

What’s Actually Happening

This isn’t a “crypto is dead” story.

Crypto has had some strong weeks, e.g. the week of March 16 tracked $1.2B raised across 18 projects (though that was heavily skewed by Kalshi’s $1B round and the Mastercard/BVNK $1.8B acquisition announcement). And February’s crypto funding hit ~$1B, with just three deals accounting for 44% of the total.

Sound familiar? That’s the same concentration dynamic playing out in AI, just at a different scale.

A few things :

1. The denominator changed. When three companies raise $156B in a month, the “percentage of VC going to crypto” metric looks catastrophic even if absolute crypto funding is stable or growing. It’s worth asking whether the right comparison is crypto vs. AI, or crypto vs. everything-that-isn’t-AI. Because everything else got squeezed too. Per Crunchbase, seed-stage funding across all sectors actually fell about 11% year-over-year in February, even as mega-rounds pushed the headline total to an all-time record.

2. AI funding isn’t really a “venture” funding round anymore. OpenAI’s $110B round came from Amazon ($50B), Nvidia ($30B), and SoftBank ($30B). Noteworthy is that only $15B of Amazon’s commitment arrived as upfront cash, with the remaining $35B contingent on conditions that reportedly include either achieving AGI or completing an IPO. Meanwhile, OpenAI committed to spend $100B on AWS over the next eight years. Many have pointed out the circular nature here…Amazon invests in OpenAI, OpenAI commits to spend multiples of that on Amazon’s cloud. Seems more like strategic infra investment v. VC. Strip out the three mega-rounds and February was a pretty ordinary month globally.

3. Crypto’s real problem isn’t AI: it’s exit velocity. The VCs I’m talking to aren’t avoiding crypto because they love AI more. They’re hesitant because crypto exit timelines are unpredictable, token liquidity is a double-edged sword, and DPI is still the metric that LPs care about most. AI startups, even relatively early ones, can point to ARR growing 3-5x annually. Anthropic went from $1 billion in annualized revenue in December 2024 to $9 billion by end of 2025 to $19 billion by early March 2026. There is simply no precedent for that growth rate in enterprise software. Insane.

At YC W26 Demo Day this month (March 24), Garry Tan shared that 14 companies hit $1M ARR by Demo Day.. the highest count ever, out of roughly 200 startups in the batch. That’s about 7% of the batch, and the average weekly revenue growth rate across the whole set was 14%. This batch was 64% B2B, only ~5% consumer, and skewed heavily toward infrastructure and hard technical problems. That’s the competitive bar crypto founders are being measured against, whether we like it or not.

4. The overlap is growing (and it’s interesting). YC announced they’ll offer USDC funding to ANY startup (not just crypto-native ones) across Ethereum, Base, and Solana, starting with the Spring 2026 batch. Mastercard acquired stablecoin infrastructure provider BVNK for up to $1.8B. Stablecoins are becoming the rails that AI companies run on. The “AI vs. Crypto” framing might be the wrong frame entirely, maybe it’s: which crypto companies are well-positioned to serve the AI capital stack?

What This Means for Crypto Founders (and Investors)

If you are a crypto founder raising today, you are no longer competing only with other crypto startups. You are competing with AI companies that can show real revenue, visible (oftentimes, parabolic) growth, and a much clearer path to scale…. That investor across the table just watched an AI company go from $0 to $19B annualized revenue in under three years.

“We are building the future of finance” is not enough anymore.

The crypto companies most likely to attract capital in this environment will look more like actual businesses: revenue, retention, distribution, and a crisp answer to why being on-chain matters (beyond “decentralization”). The era of “we will figure out the business model after the token launch” is over.

For crypto VCs, the playbook has not changed, but the urgency has. Fund managers need to show LPs that crypto can generate DPI, not just TVPI. There are real positive signals: M&A is active (Just in March: Mastercard/BVNK, Polymarket/Brahma, GSR acquiring Autonomous and Architech), stablecoins are powering real businesses, and there is finally more evidence of durable revenue in parts of the stack. But the window to prove that thesis narrows when AI is absorbing this much capital and attention.

The Bull Case

Here’s the thing that gets lost in the doom-scrolling: $189B going to three AI companies might actually be good for crypto. Why?

• These AI companies need payment rails. They need to move billions internationally, instantly, cheaply. Stablecoins do that. YC’s USDC move is a signal, not an anomaly.

• The AI capital cycle creates wealth. When Anthropic employees and OpenAI shareholders diversify, some of that capital flows into alternative assets: including crypto funds.

• AI is making crypto startups faster. The same “idea to product” compression I wrote about in January means crypto teams can ship in weeks what used to take quarters. That does not fix product-market fit, but it does raise the ceiling for what small, sharp teams can build. If you’re a crypto founder with real domain expertise and you’re not using AI to 10x your output, you’re already behind.

The question isn’t whether AI is eating crypto’s lunch. It is (right now). But it’s also eating every other category’s lunch. I’m more interested in if crypto founders and investors can adapt to a world where revenue velocity is the new table stakes, and where “protocol” is less compelling to investor than “a real company that happens to use crypto rails.”

I’m still cautiously optimistic.

Top 10 Crypto Funding Rounds

Kalshi | Series E | Prediction Market | $1,000,000,000 | 2026-03-19
Kalshi raised $1B in a Series E at a reported $22B valuation, doubling its December valuation. The prediction market platform reported $1.5B annualized revenue and weekly trading volumes exceeding $1B. Lead investor: Coatue Management.

Polymarket | Undisclosed | Prediction Market | $600,000,000 | 2026-03-27
Polymarket received a fresh $600M investment as part of a broader $1.6B total commitment. The decentralized information markets platform lets users trade on real-world outcomes. Lead investor: Intercontinental Exchange (ICE).

Core Scientific | Debt Financing | Infrastructure | $500,000,000 | 2026-03-23
Core Scientific secured an additional $500M commitment from J.P. Morgan, expanding its strategic financing facility to $1B under an accordion feature. The company operates Bitcoin mining and AI data center infrastructure. Lead investor: J.P. Morgan.

Metaplanet | Post-IPO Equity | Digital Assets | $255,000,000 | 2026-03-16
Metaplanet raised $255M through a share placement with warrants to accelerate its bitcoin treasury strategy, aiming toward a 210K BTC accumulation goal. Investors were not disclosed.

Eightco Holdings | Post-IPO | Infrastructure | $125,000,000 | 2026-03-12
Eightco Holdings secured $125M in institutional commitments to expand into AI and blockchain investments. The company disclosed holdings including 277M WLD tokens and 11K ETH. Lead investor: Bitmine.

Bluesky | Series B | Social | $100,000,000 | 2026-03-19
Bluesky disclosed a $100M Series B (raised in April 2025) as its user base grew from 13M to 43M. The company is building decentralized social media infrastructure. Lead investor: Bain Capital Crypto.

KAST | Series A | Payments | $80,000,000 | 2026-03-09
KAST raised $80M in a Series A to expand its stablecoin-powered cross-border payments platform. The company reported 1M+ users and roughly $5B annualized transaction volume, and is targeting a $100M revenue run rate in 2026. Lead investors: QED Investors and Left Lane Capital.

ARQ | Unknown | Payments | $70,000,000 | 2026-03-03
ARQ (formerly DolarApp) raised $70M to scale its stablecoin-based financial app for Latin America. The company reported 2M+ users and $10B+ annualized transaction volume. Lead investor: Sequoia Capital.

WorldWLD | OTC Transaction | Digital Assets | $65,000,000 | 2026-03-26
WorldWLD completed a $65M OTC token transaction tied to World (formerly Worldcoin). Investors were not disclosed.

Startale | Series A | Infrastructure | $50,000,000 | 2026-03-26
Startale raised $50M from SBI as part of a $63M Series A. The Japan-based blockchain company is building tokenized securities infrastructure and stablecoin rails. Lead investor: SBI Holdings.

Click to see all of March’s funding rounds here:

March Crypto VC Fund Fundraise Announcements

VCs are continuing to announce their new raises.

• a16z crypto Fund V targeting ~$2B | Mar 2026
  Andreessen Horowitz’s crypto arm was reported to be raising its fifth fund, targeting around $2 billion, with plans to close by the end of the first half of 2026.

• ParaFi new venture fund $125M | Mar 2026
  ParaFi raised $125 million in March for a new venture fund, with reporting noting a focus on areas like stablecoins, tokenization, and institutional onchain finance.

• 5c(c) Capital $35M | Mar 2026
  A new venture fund focused on prediction-market infrastructure is raising up to $35 million, backed by investors including the CEOs of Kalshi and Polymarket.

As a reminder, if you are interested in learning more about Bankless Ventures Fund II, please fill out this form and we will be in touch!

Hackathons

Upcoming

ETHGlobal Cannes 2026 | April 3–5
Cannes, France (in-person). $150k+ in prizes.

Hack The Block (Paris Blockchain Week) | April 11
Flagship Paris Blockchain Week Hackathon. Prizes to be announced.

ETHPrague Conference and Hackathon 2026 | May 8–10
Prague, Czech Republic (in-person). Three days of Ethereum talks, workshops, and hands-on hacking.

Ongoing

xStocks Hackathon EthCC: Market Open | March 31–April 2
Cannes, Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur (in-person). $75k in prizes.

Finished

MoveFWD Phase II (Alkimi x Sui) | Jan 27 – Mar 29, 2026
Online. Submission window ended March 29.

Polkadot Hub Hackathon 2026 | Feb 15 – Mar 24, 2026
Online. $30k prize pool for builders on Polkadot Hub.

Ordeflow 001 (Polymarket bot sprint) | Mar 22 – Mar 24, 2026
Online. 48-hour build sprint for Polymarket and on-chain trading bots.

Demo Days

Upcoming

RWA Demo Day Final Pitch Event | Apr 8, 2026
Online. Final pitch event with winners announced April 21 (to be showcased during Hong Kong Web3 Festival).

Base Batches Demo Day | Late May 2026
San Francisco, USA (in-person). Culmination showcase for Base Batches teams.

Finished

Helika × Avalanche Accelerator Demo Day | Mar 9, 2026
San Francisco, USA (in-person). Demo day for the Avalanche x Helika accelerator cohort.

Accelerator Applications

Base Batches 003: Student Track | Open (apply by Apr 27, 2026)
Online. Student track for onchain builders; top teams flown to San Francisco for Demo Day.

Alliance ALL17 | Open (rolling; cohort starts May 11, 2026)
New York City + remote. Crypto & AI accelerator offering $500k to admitted startups (per program terms).

Zynaris Web3 Accelerator | Open (rolling admissions)
Online. Rolling admissions “perpetual challenge” format; the program markets a funding range for selected founders.

That’s a wrap for March!

Thank you and good luck out there.

Ben Lakoff, CFA
https://twitter.com/benlakoff

Welcome to the February Deal Flow Digest, including every crypto / web3 funding round we tracked last month, as well as the ALL the deals, and the recent hackathon/demo day results (in the links).

In February, AngelList published their Fund Benchmarks Report 2025 (data current as of January 1, 2026), covering 1,000+ early-stage funds. And Galaxy Digital Research released their Q4 2025 Crypto & Blockchain Venture Capital Report, capping off a year that saw a significant rebound in crypto VC activity. I think these two reports paint a pretty comprehensive picture of where venture (and crypto venture specifically) sits heading into 2026.

The State of Venture Fund Performance + Crypto VC: What the Data Shows

AngelList data shows a structural break at the 2020 vintage. Median TVPI surged between Q4 2020 and Q1 2022, then flatlined. The 2021 valuation wave lifted multiple vintages simultaneously, and funds launched 2021–2023 largely missed that uplift, stagnating near 1.0x TVPI.

The 2021 vintage is the weakest cohort… In fact, AngelList notes the median 2021 fund may lose money, something Cambridge Associates hasn’t recorded since the 2000 vintage. 2024 could represent a better entry point, but it’s early.

Interesting that a portfolio that invested $1 in every AngelList fund would have achieved a 20.6% IRR, 2.08x TVPI, and 0.19x DPI net to LPs by end of 2025. That very low DPI number is a reminder that realized returns remain thin across the VC asset class.

Crypto VC: The Rebound Is Real, But Concentrated

Galaxy’s data tells a complementary story from the crypto-specific lens. The headline number is that Crypto VCs invested $20 billion across 1,660 deals in 2025… more than double 2023’s figure. Q4 alone saw $8.5B deployed across 425 deals, an 84% jump from Q3 and the strongest quarter since Q2 2022.

But the headline numbers mask heavy concentration. In Q4, eleven deals over $100M accounted for ~85% of capital deployed. Revolut ($3B), Touareg Group ($1B), and Kraken ($800M) dominated. According to Galaxy’s Alex Thorn: “The golden era of pre-seed crypto venture investing has likely passed” as pre-seed share has declined consistently as the industry matures. In fact, 56% of Q4 capital went to later-stage companies, reflecting an industry that’s consolidating around established players rather than spreading bets across early-stage experiments.

The category mix is shifting too. Trading, exchange, and lending companies captured the most capital in 2025, followed by stablecoins, AI, and blockchain infrastructure. The previously hot sectors (e.g. gaming, NFTs, Web3 consumer) have faded.

On the fundraising side, crypto-focused VC funds raised $8.75B in 2025, the most since 2022, with average fund size hitting $167M and a median of $46M.

One tension worth flagging: Galaxy notes that spot Bitcoin ETPs and digital asset treasury companies may be competing directly with crypto VC for allocator interest. Some large institutional investors (pensions, endowments, hedge funds) are gaining crypto exposure through liquid, regulated products rather than committing to early-stage funds. This “barbell” dynamic (BTC ETFs on one end, memecoins on the other) continues to squeeze the middle where most crypto VC operates. Note, that while I agree that pre-seed investing in crypto VC is not as easy as it once was, there are still tremendous opportunities if you’re selective.

Some Operational Benchmarks: No Single Playbook

The AngelList operational data confirms what many of us already suspected: emerging managers follow wildly different playbooks, and many of them work.

• GP commits range from 1% (25th percentile) to 12% (75th percentile). The median is 4%, well above the typical 1–4% legal minimum. About 60% of AngelList funds have GP commits, and ~20% use cashless commits via management fee diversion.

• $20M is where institutional capital enters. Below that line, only 2–16% of funds are audited. Above it, 50–100% are. Firms represent 49% of commitments for sub-$20M funds but jump to 66% above that mark. University and philanthropic endowments only show up as anchor LPs in $20M+ funds.

• LP concentration is notable: for a typical fund, the top 5 LPs represent ~50% of commitments. At the 75th percentile, the largest single LP accounts for 48% of capital, and the top 5 represent 92%.

• Portfolio construction varies widely: the median fund holds 16 companies (IQR: 9–34) with a median seed check of $50K, reflecting AngelList’s smaller fund sizes. Strategy alignment should be visible in portfolio size, check sizing, and deployment pace.

• Fundraising timelines range from 2 to 28 months between first and last close (25th to 75th percentile). The typical fund closes ~51% of capital in its first close. Capital deployment is fast: the typical 2024 fund has already deployed ~48% of committed capital into startups, with emerging managers calling about a third of capital per year for the first three years.

• For GPs raising successor funds: Fund II is typically 2.6x larger than Fund I, with 29% of capital from returning LPs. Fund III is 1.9x larger than Fund II, with 45% returning capital. But the median commitment from returning investors actually decreased in absolute terms.. meaning GPs grow by finding new LPs, not by upsizing existing ones.

What This Means

For GPs: Align operations with your strategy, not the average. A concentrated 10-company portfolio requires different operational targets than a diversified 30+ company approach. In crypto specifically, the capital is flowing back… but it’s flowing toward later-stage, proven companies. If you’re running an early-stage crypto fund, the competitive dynamics are tougher: fewer mega-rounds to mark up against, and LPs increasingly able to get crypto exposure through liquid alternatives like ETFs.

For LPs: Diversify by vintage year. Macro conditions dominate short-term performance across all funds, the 2021 cohort shows that. Galaxy’s data reinforces this: the correlation between Bitcoin price and VC activity that held in prior cycles has broken down, so even a crypto bull market doesn’t guarantee strong VC vintages. Use AngelList’s benchmarks during diligence: a GP claiming a concentrated strategy shouldn’t have 35+ companies. And pay close attention to DPI, paper markups remain high, but cash-on-cash returns are still slim for most vintages.

The 2025 data overall is cautiously encouraging. Crypto VC capital is returning at scale, 2024-vintage funds are outperforming the stagnant 2021–2023 cohorts, and the regulatory environment, particularly in the US with the GENIUS Act now law, is creating new investable categories in stablecoins, tokenization, and DeFi-TradFi convergence. Whether this translates to actual realized returns is the question that matters most, and one we’ll be tracking closely.

Top 10 Crypto Funding Rounds

Flying Tulip | Public token sale | DeFi | $206,000,000 | 2026-02-23
Flying Tulip dominated February’s fundraising with a $206M public token sale. The yield aggregation protocol pools deposits into automated yield strategies on Ethereum, reflecting surging appetite for passive DeFi yield products and positioning it as one of the most well-capitalized yield protocols in the market.

Whop | Strategic | Web3 | $200,000,000 | 2026-02-25
Whop raised $200M from Tether at a $1.6B valuation. The social commerce platform enables creators to build storefronts and sell digital goods, with Tether’s investment signaling aggressive diversification into Web3 commerce infrastructure while validating Whop’s position as a leading creator economy platform..

Anchorage Digital | Strategic | Banking | $100,000,000 | 2026-02-05
Anchorage Digital received a $100M strategic equity investment from Tether—the stablecoin giant’s second major bet of the month. As a federally chartered digital asset bank, Anchorage provides institutional custody, trading, and crypto financial infrastructure, strengthening ties between the world’s largest stablecoin issuer and a leading regulated custodian.

Novig | Series B | Prediction Market | $75,000,000 | 2026-02-18
Novig raised $75M in a Series B led by Pantera Capital at a $500M valuation. The commission-free, peer-to-peer sports prediction market eliminates the house edge by enabling direct user-to-user trading, positioning it as a well-funded challenger to legacy sportsbooks amid a broader prediction market boom.

TRM Labs | Series C | Crypto Intelligence | $70,000,000 | 2026-02-04
TRM Labs raised $70M Series C led by Blockchain Capital at a $1B valuation. With Goldman Sachs, Citi Ventures, and Brevan Howard in the syndicate, the blockchain intelligence company’s raise underscores institutional demand for compliance and surveillance infrastructure as crypto adoption scales.

Jupiter | Strategic | DeFi | $35,000,000 | 2026-02-01
Jupiter secured a $35M strategic investment from ParaFi Capital to expand its full-stack Solana ecosystem. Best known as Solana’s dominant DEX aggregator, Jupiter is rapidly expanding into prediction markets and other verticals, reinforcing its ambitions to become Solana’s all-in-one DeFi hub.

Bluff | Strategic | Prediction Market | $21,000,000 | 2026-02-03
Bluff raised $21M led by 1kx to build a social-first betting and entertainment platform combining sportsbook, iGaming, prediction markets, and creator-led events. Its focus on instant onboarding, real-time on-chain settlement, and social gameplay reflects the growing convergence of prediction markets and social entertainment.

Opinion | Series A | Prediction Market | $20,000,000 | 2026-02-04
Opinion raised $20M backed by Hack VC, Jump Crypto, and Primitive Ventures to build a prediction exchange for macroeconomic data and news. By enabling direct trading of economic predictions as standardized assets, Opinion targets a novel niche highlighting continued VC conviction in prediction market infrastructure.

Relay Protocol | Series B | Infrastructure | $17,000,000 | 2026-02-05
Relay Protocol raised $17M co-led by Archetype Ventures and USV to scale its decentralized multichain interoperability protocol. Relay enables fast, low-cost cross-chain transfers by relaying transaction intents and liquidity across blockchains, with USV’s backing positioning it as core plumbing for the multi-chain future.

Kresus | (Round not specified) | Wallet | $13,000,000 | 2026-02-18
Kresus raised $13M from Hanwha Investment and Securities, one of South Korea’s largest financial conglomerates. The Web3 mobile wallet offers a seedless, user-friendly experience for managing crypto and NFTs, reflecting growing TradFi interest in consumer-grade Web3 wallets in the active Korean market.

Click to see all of February’s funding rounds here:

February Crypto VC Fund Fundraise Announcements

VCs are continuing to announce their new raises.

• Dragonfly Fund IV $650M | Feb 2026
  Dragonfly closed its fourth crypto venture fund at $650 million. The firm said it will continue backing major crypto infrastructure and onchain finance themes, including stablecoins and tokenized real-world assets.

• DBA Fund II $62M | Feb 2026
  DBA announced its second venture fund at roughly $62 million, focused on early-stage crypto-native startups. Some coverage reported a slightly higher figure, but the announcement marked a new crypto venture vehicle for the firm.

• Paradigm New Fund up to $1.5B | Feb 2026
  Paradigm was reported to be preparing a new fund of up to $1.5 billion. The fund would expand the firm’s scope beyond crypto into adjacent areas like AI and robotics while maintaining crypto exposure.

As a reminder, if you are interested in learning more about Bankless Ventures Fund II, please fill out this form and we will be in touch!

Hackathons

Upcoming

xStocks Hackathon EthCC: Market Open | March 31–April 2
Cannes, Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur (in-person). $75k in prizes.

ETHGlobal Cannes 2026 | April 3–5
Cannes, France (in-person). $100k+ in prizes.

Ongoing

MoveFWD Phase II (Alkimi x Sui) | Jan 27 – Mar 29, 2026
Online. $150K prize pool focused on building on Sui across multiple tracks.

Polkadot Hub Hackathon 2026 | Feb 15 – Mar 24, 2026
Online. $30K prize pool for Web3 builders creating apps on Polkadot Hub

Finished

HackMoney 2026 (ETHGlobal) | Jan 30 – Feb 11, 2026
Online (async). $2,000,000+ in prizes (per ETHGlobal’s “async hackathons” framing, which includes HackMoney). Winners announced here.

Pump.Fun Build in Public Hackathon | Jan 28 - Feb 25, 2026
$3 million in total funding, distributed across 12 winners, with $250,000 in investment per project. Winners to be announced.

Demo Days

Upcoming

Helika × Avalanche Accelerator Demo Day | Mar 9, 2026
San Francisco, USA (in-person). Demo day for the first cohort of Avalanche game studios from the Helika accelerator, with studio showcases and a preview of Helika’s publishing stack.

MasterZ × IOTA Berlin Demo Day | Mar 31, 2026
Berlin, Germany (in-person). Final showcase and awards day for the MasterZ × IOTA Web3 hackathon, where top teams present to the IOTA Foundation.

Finished

Anchorage Digital Demo Day @ ETHDenver | Feb 17, 2026
Denver, USA (in-person). Invite-only showcase for early-stage protocol teams building crypto infrastructure. Winner announced here.

mtnDAO Demo Day | Feb 25, 2026
Salt Lake City, USA / livestream. Solana and mtnDAO’s first demo day, featuring early-stage teams from the summit pitching builders and investors.

Accelerator Applications

Nitro | Open (apply by Mar 14, 2026)
New York City + remote. Web3 accelerator open to founders building on any chain; accepted teams receive $500k each, with one month in person in NYC and two months remote before demo day.

Alliance ALL17 | Open (apply by Mar 25, 2026)
New York City + remote. Crypto accelerator for early-stage to later-stage teams; Alliance says accepted startups get $500k funding, with a 2-week in-person NYC onboarding followed by an 8-week remote program.

That’s a wrap for February!

Thank you and good luck out there.

Ben Lakoff, CFA
https://twitter.com/benlakoff

Welcome to the January Deal Flow Digest, including every crypto / web3 funding round we tracked last month, as well as the ALL the deals, and the recent hackathon/demo day results (in the links).

It’s getting weird out there with the growth of everything that’s happening in AI. I wanted to touch briefly on that before jumping into the normal newsletter content below.

On Exponential Growth & Startups

Exponential growth is hard for humans to truly feel. Even when we understand the math, our intuition stays stubbornly linear.

A simple way to feel exponential growth is the classic paper-folding thought experiment.

Start with a standard sheet of paper—about 0.1 millimeters thick.
Each time you fold it in half, the thickness doubles:

• 1 fold: 2 layers

• 2 folds: 4 layers

• 3 folds: 8 layers
  …and so on.

It starts slow… and then it gets weird.

• 10 folds: ~0.1 meters (about 4 inches)

• 20 folds: ~100 meters (taller than a skyscraper)

• 30 folds: ~100 kilometers (into the edge of space)

• 40 folds: ~100,000 kilometers (a quarter of the way to the Moon)

• 42 folds: ~400,000+ kilometers (past the Moon, which is ~384,400 km away)

(Yes, in real life you can’t fold paper 42 times. Usually ~7–8 is the practical limit, but this is a physics-ignored thought experiment to show the math.)

So why am I talking about folding paper in a monthly newsletter about the crypto venture market?

Because exponentials surprise you. Linear progress is easy to understand: add a little, get a little. Exponential progress is different: it looks unimpressive… right until it stops looking unimpressive all at once.

Exponential growth is happening right in front of us, in AI.

Here’s an excerpt from an essay titled “The Adolescence of Technology,” written by Dario Amodei, the CEO of Anthropic.

And that’s exactly what I felt over Christmas.

Yes, I disconnected and spent some real time with family…. But then I went head-first into learning more about AI, specifically Claude Code and “coding agents.” I signed up for my friend Sean’s vibe coding boot camp that was supposed to take five weeks.

Then one weekend I got completely absorbed… and I accidentally did the entire five-week curriculum in a weekend.

By the end of it, I went from a loose idea to a fully-functional working app - hooked up to Stripe, accepting subscriptions.

As someone who’s been an entrepreneur and worked with dev teams for years, the “who can ship” landscape is changing fast.

For a non-technical builder, this ability and unlock is insane: you can describe what you want, let the agent attempt it, debug it, retry it, and keep iterating until it works…. All on your own, without the usual friction of coordination overhead.

This isn’t to say tech teams go away. But the “technical moat” shifts. Building gets exponentially cheaper and thus stops being the bottleneck.

For me, it’s already changing how I think about the venture market in crypto. If tiny teams can get to market quickly, the edge increasingly moves to:

• Distribution - Can you efficiently acquire and retain users?

• Taste & Product Judgment - Are they building what’s worth building?

• Security + Trust - Is it safe to use?

• Data and Workflow lock-in - Do they have a wedge that compounds? What gets stickier over time?

Which brings me to the darker side of the same trend. Yes, it will create an explosion of projects, which also means an explosion of noise.

Merriam-Webster’s 2025 Word of the Year was “slop”: low-quality digital content produced at scale by AI.

If you think that was a theme in 2025… brace yourself for 2026.

Slop moves beyond fake news, cat videos, and viral tiktoks / IG into everything else. Every corner of digital media gets flooded…marketing pages, “research,” newsletters, landing pages, tools, even SaaS products. And they look good.

So, be careful out there. If anyone can launch an app quickly, not everyone is launching it securely. The credit card form might look legitimate. The onboarding flow might feel polished. But the underlying security posture may not be.

On the optimistic side (and I’m optimistic to a fault), there’s a massive upside here too: faster iteration, more experimentation, and a wave of new products that genuinely improve people’s lives…. and occasionally, a real breakout.

I just can’t stop thinking about how psychologically fascinating these coding agents are to watch. They don’t get tired. They don’t get demoralized. They’ll brute-force a problem for 30 minutes straight where a human would give up and come back tomorrow. It’s a real “feel the AGI” moment when it finally lands the solution.

We’re in a sweet spot right now. The pace of change is overwhelming for most people and the tools are powerful, but most people haven’t fully internalized what they can do.

If you haven’t spent time with coding agents yet, I’d strongly encourage you to go down the rabbit hole. Even if you never write a line of code, understanding how fast “idea > product” is compressing is going to matter for fundraising, diligence, and where investment moats come from next. It’s getting wild out there. Strap in.

Top 10 Crypto Funding Rounds

Rain | Series C | Payments | $250,000,000 | 2026-01-09
Rain is a blockchain-based card issuing and stablecoin payments platform for Web3 teams and DAOs, enabling customizable payment cards for digital asset spending and expense management. The Series C was led by Iconiq Capital, with participation from Sapphire Ventures, Dragonfly Capital, Bessemer Ventures, Galaxy Digital, FirstMark Capital, Lightspeed Faction, Norwest Venture Partners, and Endeavor Catalyst.

BitGo | IPO | Custody | $212,800,000 | 2026-01-21
BitGo is a digital asset security firm providing institutional-grade crypto custody and infrastructure for banks, hedge funds, exchanges, and other large institutions. The funding is tied to BitGo’s IPO, with the round details reported via Reuters.

LMAX Group | Strategic | Trading | $150,000,000 | 2026-01-15
LMAX Group is an institutional trading and fintech firm running execution-only venues for FX, digital assets, and equities. Ripple provided $150 million in strategic financing, supporting LMAX’s regulated, low-latency crypto trading infrastructure (LMAX Digital) for banks, brokers, and asset managers.

Alpaca | Series D | Trading | $150,000,000 | 2026-01-14
Alpaca is an API-first trading platform offering commission-free trading and brokerage/market data APIs for fintechs and institutions. The Series D was led by Drive Capital, with participation from Citadel Securities, Opera Tech Ventures, MUFG Innovation Partners, Flat Capital, DRW Venture Capital, Kraken Ventures, Bank Muscat, Endeavor Catalyst, Portage Ventures, Horizons Ventures, and others.

Superstate | Series B | RWA | $82,500,000 | 2026-01-22
Superstate is an asset manager using blockchain rails to issue tokenized investment products, including an Ethereum-based open mutual fund tied to short-term U.S. government bonds filed with the SEC. The Series B was led by Bain Capital Crypto and Distributed Global, with participation from Haun Ventures, Brevan Howard Digital, Galaxy Digital, Sentinel Global, Bullish, Flowdesk, and others.

Mesh | Series C | Payments | $75,000,000 | 2026-01-27
Mesh is a global crypto payments network connecting exchanges, wallets, and financial platforms so users can pay with any crypto while merchants receive stablecoins or fiat. The Series C was led by Dragonfly Capital, with participation from Paradigm, Coinbase Ventures, Moderne Ventures, SBI Investment, and Liberty City Ventures. The round valued Mesh at $1 billion.

ICEx | (Round not specified) | Centralized Exchange | $70,000,000 | 2026-01-12
ICEx is an Indonesia-based regulated crypto exchange offering spot trading and digital asset services, including local fiat on/off-ramps. The raise was reported alongside regulatory approval positioning ICEx as the country’s second licensed crypto exchange.

Zama | Public token sale | Privacy Infrastructure | $44,000,000 | 2026-01-26
Zama is an open-source cryptography company focused on Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE) for blockchain and AI, enabling encrypted computation and confidential applications. The project raised $44 million via a public token sale at a reported $550 million valuation.

ZBD | Series C | Payments | $40,000,000 | 2026-01-22
ZBD is a Bitcoin Lightning Network payments provider for gaming and digital entertainment, offering APIs/SDKs for instant, low-cost payments and payouts. The Series C was backed by Blockstream Capital Partners.

StreamX (StreamEx) | IPO | RWA | $35,000,000 | 2026-01-26
StreamEx is an institutional RWA tokenization platform bringing commodities on-chain, including a gold-backed stablecoin product designed to generate yield via gold leasing. The $35 million raise came via an IPO/public offering.

Click to see all of January’s funding rounds here:

January Crypto VC Fund fundraise Announcements

VCs are continuing to announce their new raises.

• a16z | Multi-fund close ~$15B total for 2025 fundraising | Jan 2026
  Andreessen Horowitz announced a large multi-fundraise spanning several strategies (including crypto). The update framed 2025 as a major capital-raising year for the firm.

• Solayer Fund $35M | Jan 2026
  Solayer unveils $35 million fund for real-time DeFi, AI and tokenization apps on infiniSVM

• Escape Velocity $62M | Jan 2026
  Escape Velocity disclosed a ~$62 million fundraise focused on DePIN (decentralized physical infrastructure), positioning the fund around the thesis that real-world networks (compute, connectivity, energy, sensors) will be built and owned in more crypto-native ways.

As a reminder, if you are interested in learning more about Bankless Ventures Fund II, please fill out this form and we will be in touch!

Hackathons

Ongoing

MoveFWD Phase II (Alkimi x Sui) | Jan 27 – Mar 29, 2026
Online. $150K prize pool focused on building on Sui across multiple tracks.

HackMoney 2026 (ETHGlobal) | Jan 30 – Feb 11, 2026
Online (async). $2,000,000+ in prizes (per ETHGlobal’s “async hackathons” framing, which includes HackMoney).

Pump.Fun Build in Public Hackathon | Ongoing
$3 million in total funding, distributed across 12 winners, with $250,000 in investment per project.

Finished

BNB Chain “Good Vibes Only” Hackathon | Jan 22–29, 2026
Winners announced here.

Demo Days

Upcoming

Mantle Global Hackathon Demo Day | Feb 1, 2026
Online.

Finished

Algorand Startup Lab Demo Day | Jan 28, 2026

Accelerator Applications

Tenity Programs | Open (varies by program)
Global (multiple cities listed; program availability and deadlines vary).

That’s a wrap for January! Wishing everyone a very happy new year ahead.

Thank you and good luck out there.

Ben Lakoff, CFA
https://twitter.com/benlakoff

I pulled together 26 institutional and expert sources (listed at the bottom including Bitwise, Bankless, a16z crypto, Galaxy, Pantera, Coinbase, Messari, Delphi, Grayscale, and more) and consolidated the consensus, contrarians, drivers, scenarios, and investable opportunities in crypto for 2026.

In general, the crypto industry is currently undergoing a structural transformation, moving from a speculative subculture into “invisible infrastructure”. As we look toward 2026, the era of “weirdos and true believers” is being superseded by a regime of institutional maturation, where the technology “disappears” into everyday financial products.

This year I wanted something more useful: a scorecard for 2025 (what was forecast vs what happened) and a structured pulse check for 2026 (where experts broadly agree, where they diverge and what to watch).

Part I: 2025 > What was forecast, and how it panned out

Across the major prediction sets I consolidated last year, the common story was:

• Bitcoin-led institutionalization

• Stablecoins becoming real payments plumbing

• Crypto x AI / agents colliding with on-chain rails

• Tokenization + DeFi revenue turning crypto apps into “financial products”

What they got right:

• Stablecoins “graduated.” They shifted from “crypto liquidity” to real settlement infrastructure with mainstream adoption momentum.

• Tokenization became tangible. Tokenized treasuries/MMFs moved from pilots to repeatable product distribution.

• Policy got real. Strategic reserve / stockpile talk became a credible policy surface, not just Twitter theater.

Where they missed: Exact numbers and price targets. The directional calls were mostly right, but forecasts were overconfident on precision (agent % of tx, TVL thresholds, specific price levels) and underpriced how quickly definitions and measurement would shift.

2025 takeaway was that the story wasn’t “which chain won.” It was crypto becoming boring infrastructure in the places TradFi already lives: dollars, credit, collateral, and distribution.

Looking back, 2025’s accuracy stemmed from underestimating volatility while nailing the “boring” utility shift. The year set up 2026 as crypto’s “grown-up” phase.

Part II: 2026 >: The consensus, the contrarian edges, and the real “why now”

2026 Consensus Ideas

If 2025 was “institutional narratives get louder,” 2026 is being framed as: crypto’s grown-up year.

The 2026 base case is crypto “disappearing into everything else”: stablecoins and tokenization as boring rails, DeFi as pro-grade market structure and credit, and apps/agents driving UX abstraction.

This means more real integration into finance, and more real risk (security, enforcement, macro policy backlash.

Consensus (6+ sources) focuses on maturation over speculation.

• Stablecoins become core infrastructure: Payments, settlement, on-chain FX, and yield-bearing “cash” products keep scaling.

• Tokenization / RWAs move from pilots → distribution: Tokenization becomes less about “is it possible?” and more about “who has distribution?” Treasuries/credit come first because they’re clean, standardizable, and collateral-native.

• “Perpification” + pro market structure keep eating share: Perps continue to absorb speculative volume and increasingly serve as the simplest financial wrapper for many exposures. The new angle: as perps scale, the market must professionalize (risk engines, liquidation design, collateral standards, terminals).

• DeFi grows up into credit + packaged yield (“meta-yield”): Expect more undercollateralized lending attempts, more modular lending primitives, and more “vault abstractions” that package outcomes.

• Privacy + security become moats (and table stakes): Institutions want privacy. Retail often underweights it until forced. ZK/FHE and private orderflow rails show up as recurring “moat” predictions.

• Regulatory Clarity as Tailwind: Bipartisan laws like CLARITY Act unlock trillions. Enforcement creates first-mover edges.

• AI agents + DePIN become real workflows: Agents need programmable money rails and identity. DePIN needs provable demand and revenue. Both are moving from narrative → implementation.

• Apps > chains (superapps win distribution): The interface becomes the moat. Aggregation wins. It’s less “which chain is best” and more “who owns the user relationship.”

Contrarian Calls

These aren’t consensus, but I found them interesting:

• Major DeFi Hack Crisis: $10B+ exploit sparks international fallout (Standard Crypto).

• U.S. Chokepoint on Bitcoin: Bans on private custody, pegged to dollar at banks (Standard Crypto).

• Ethereum Back to PoW Advocacy: Evangelists push revival due to PoS flaws (Standard Crypto).

• AI Agent Billionaire: Agent trades to billionaire status, sparking seizure debates (Standard Crypto).

• DAT Failures and Compression: 5+ treasury firms shut down (Galaxy).

• No Solana Inflation Reduction: SIMD-0411 fails (Galaxy).

• AI-Driven Societal Alienation: Crypto as “last free port” amid labor obsolescence and mind colonization (RedPhone Crypto).

• Supercycle vs. Off-Year Debate: Sustained bull or winter? (Fidelity).

• New Memecoin King >$100B: Speculation undefeated (Standard Crypto).

• Stablecoins Blamed for EM Destabilization: Political backlash (Bitwise).

• BTC Less Volatile Than Nvidia: Cycle truly breaks (Bitwise).

• ZEC Repriced as Private Hedge: Application money emerges (Messari).

“Why Now” Drivers

A lot of these predictions rhyme because people are assuming the same causal stack:

• Regulatory Shift: From frameworks to enforcement (GENIUS/CLARITY Acts) unlocks institutional flows and compliance tools.

• Distribution Bundling: Superapps own customer relationships, hiding complexity for mainstream adoption.

• Yield + Market Maturation: Perps, credit, and yield packaging evolve toward “real finance” UX.

• AI-Driven Machine Economy: Agents need low-cost micropayments and identity—crypto fits where TradFi can’t.

• Privacy/Security as Table-Stakes: Institutions demand moats as on-chain value grows, accelerating ZK/FHE.

Scenarios (Base / Bull / Bear)

Base Case (Most Likely): Stablecoins/RWAs compound; perps/DeFi credit mature selectively; macro “constructive but uneven” with dispersion—stock-picker’s market. BTC hits new highs in a chaotic year; DeFi/prediction markets expand steadily; L2 consolidation (e.g., Base leads).

Bull Case (Upside Regime): Cycle breaks decisively—volatility dampens, ETFs/institutions accelerate, majors draw trillions. Sovereign/endowment BTC additions; RWAs 10x; AI agents scale to billionaire status; ETFs absorb >100% new supply.

Bear Case (Downside Regime): Major hack or enforcement wave; stablecoins scapegoated for EM issues; liquidity tightens. U.S. chokepoints on BTC/privacy; quantum threats loom; altcoins siloed further.

Key Risks (Ranked)

1. Systemic Security Event: Major DeFi hack erodes trust and triggers policy backlash.

2. Regulatory Chokepoints: Shift from frameworks to crackdowns, favoring incumbents.

3. Macro Liquidity Reversal: Uneven flows lead to ETF outflows and stagnation.

4. Stablecoin Backlash: Political heat over EM destabilization or dollarization.

5. Agent-Driven Fraud: New vectors from autonomous AI erode confidence.

6. Fragmentation/Closed Loops: Walled stablecoin gardens limit composability.

“What Wins” Map (Investable Surfaces)

Summing up these predictions, this is how I’d think about opportunity if the consensus is right:

• Rails: Stablecoin issuers/distributors (banks/fintechs), tokenization stacks (issuance/custody/settlement), on/off ramps, compliance tools.

• Market Structure: Perp venues/liquidity (prop-AMMs/CLOBs), prediction infra (Polymarket), terminals routing fragmentation.

• Infra Moats: Privacy tech (ZK/FHE/private orderflow), security tooling, DePIN/compute markets (miners as AI providers).

• Apps: Superapps (Coinbase/Robinhood), agentic commerce (x402 wallets), “markets as product” (predictions, tokenized collectibles).

Who Disagrees (Dissenting / Tone-Shifting Voices)

Skeptics on “Easy Mode”: Delphi and Coinbase warn of “constructive but uneven” macro—no 2020 liquidity floods; altcoin dispersion persists (Bitcoin decouples, alts siloed).

Cycle Debaters: Fidelity debates supercycle vs. “off-year” winter; Galaxy sees chaos despite highs; Grayscale declares the four-year cycle dead, but Barron’s notes dialed-back targets.

Cultural Mourners: Dougie DeLuca frames crypto “dying” as subculture to become invisible infra; RedPhone Crypto warns of AI alienation, positioning crypto as “last free port” against surveillance.

Philosophical Outliers: Standard Crypto’s wild bets (PoW revival, AI billionaire) and Messari’s ZEC repricing as privacy hedge challenge pure utility narratives.

Final Takeaway: 2026 Predictions

2026 looks like crypto’s inflection point: the shift from “weird experiment” to embedded financial plumbing. Stablecoins and RWAs are the boring winners, while AI and privacy are the frontiers. If 2025 was the year crypto got taken seriously, 2026 is the year it either gets trusted or gets contained. Trust comes from survivable market structure (perps, credit, collateral), privacy/security institutions can actually use, and distribution through superapps normal users already have. Containment comes from enforcement shocks, stablecoin politics, and security failures. The scoreboard is simple: are the rails scaling, and do they hold up under stress?

Appendix: Sources

• BanklessVC: Investing Trends for 2026

• 2024 Predictions Summary (Ben Lakoff)

• Bitwise

• a16z crypto

• Galaxy Research

• Pantera

• Coinbase Institutional

• 21Shares

• Fidelity

• Messari

• The Block Research

• AMINA

• Standard Crypto

• Coinbase Ventures

• Delphi Digital (Apps report)

• Frontera

• Variant (Alana Levin thread)

• OKX Ventures (Esme)

• Gate Ventures (via DeFi Warhol)

• 0xJeff

• Dougie DeLuca

• Delphi Digital (Markets Podcast)

• Grayscale Research

• Miguelrare

• Hashdex (via Nate Geraci)

• RedPhone Crypto

Top 10 Crypto Funding Rounds

RedotPay | Series B | Others | $107,000,000 | 2025-12-16
Hong Kong-based fintech RedotPay secured $107 million in Series B funding to scale its stablecoin payments platform across 100+ countries. The oversubscribed round was led by Goodwater Capital, with participation from Pantera Capital, Blockchain Capital, and Circle Ventures.

Fuse | Series B | Infrastructure | $70,000,000 | 2025-12-18
Fuse raised $70 million in a Series B round at a reported $5 billion valuation. Fuse Network rewards users with Energy Dollars (a crypto asset) for shifting their electricity consumption to off-peak hours or automating smart devices to help stabilize the grid and enable cheaper, cleaner power. The financing was backed by Balderton Capital and Lowercarbon Capital.

Digital Asset | Strategic | Infrastructure | $50,000,000 | 2025-12-04
Digital Asset Holdings LLC has successfully raised $50 million in a new funding round, with significant contributions from BNY Mellon, Nasdaq Inc, S&P Global, and iCapital. This follows a $135 million funding round earlier this year led by DRW Venture Capital and Tradeweb Markets, which included investors like Citadel Securities and Optiver.

LI.FI | Undisclosed | DeFi | $29,000,000 | 2025-12-11
LI.FI secured $29 million in new funding led by Multicoin Capital and CoinFund. The raise expands its earlier Series A extension and brings total capital raised to $51.7 million. LiFi supplies transaction routing services to fintechs, wallets, and trading platforms. The company handles $8 billion in monthly volume. It calls its platform an “encrypted Google Maps” for navigating blockchain transactions.

Real Finance | Undisclosed | Infrastructure | $29,000,000 | 2025-12-10
Real Finance, an RWA tokenization network, secured $29 million in funding anchored by a $25 million investment from Nimbus Capital plus a $4 million private round led by Magnus Capital. The capital will support expansion of its tokenization and on-chain infrastructure roadmap.

Portal To Bitcoin | Undisclosed | Infrastructure | $25,000,000 | 2025-12-04
Portal to Bitcoin secured $25 million in funding alongside the launch of an atomic OTC trading desk designed for large cross-chain transactions. Investors were not disclosed.

MetaComp | Pre-Series A | CeFi | $22,000,000 | 2025-12-09
MetaComp, a Singapore-based licensed stablecoin cross-border payments and treasury management provider, raised $22 million in Pre-Series A funding. Sky9 Capital led the round.

TenX | Undisclosed | DeFi | $22,000,000 | 2025-12-10
TenX Protocols raised fresh capital to keep building out its DeFi ecosystem, reporting more than C$33 million raised across 2025 via subscription receipts and seed funding. Investors were not disclosed.

Ostium | Series A | DeFi | $20,000,000 | 2025-12-03
Ostium raised $20 million for its Arbitrum-based on-chain perpetuals platform offering exposure to equities, commodities, indices, and FX. The protocol reported $25 billion in cumulative volume, with more than 95% of open interest tied to traditional markets; General Catalyst backed the round.

Bitstack | Series A | DeFi | $15,000,000 | 2025-12-05
Paris-based Bitstack, a Bitcoin savings application, has raised a $15 million Series A round led by 13books Capital, with participation from existing investors.

Click to see all of December’s funding rounds here:

December Crypto VC Fund fundraise Announcements

VCs are continuing to announce their new raises.

• 2025-12-03: New Crypto Hedge Fund With $100M Seed Capital Targets BTC-Linked Institutional Alpha. A new market-neutral, multi-strategy crypto hedge fund is targeting institutional allocators (family offices, sovereign investors, etc.)

• 2025-12-04: Entrée Capital Debuts $300M Fund With Focus on AI Agents, DePIN. Entrée Capital unveiled a $300M fund prioritizing AI agents, DePIN, and regulated Web3 infrastructure (early-stage focus).

• 2025-12-17: Moon Pursuit Capital launches $100M market-neutral crypto fund. Moon Pursuit is launching a $100M market-neutral quantitative crypto fund aimed at lower-volatility, risk-adjusted returns.

As a reminder, if you are interested in learning more about Bankless Ventures Fund II, please fill out this form and we will be in touch!

Hackathons

Upcoming

HackMoney 2026 (ETHGlobal) | Jan 30 – Feb 11, 2026
Online (async). $2,000,000+ in prizes (per ETHGlobal’s “async hackathons” framing, which includes HackMoney).

Ongoing

Mantle Global Hackathon 2025 | Oct 15 – Dec 31, 2025 (submissions into mid-Jan 2026 per timeline coverage)
Online. $150K in prizes.

Finished

BNB Chain x YZi Labs Hack Series: Abu Dhabi | Dec 5 – 6, 2025
Abu Dhabi, UAE (hybrid/in-person). $160K in prizes.

Hedera Africa Hackathon 2025 | (Program ran through Nov 2025; winners to be updated)
Virtual. $1M prize pool; winners/results are posted on the official hackathon site.

Demo Days

Upcoming

Mantle Global Hackathon Demo Day | Feb 1, 2026
Online.

Accelerator Applications

ES Accelerator | Apply by Jan 7, 2026
Hybrid/Global (program details on site; blockchain + frontier tech focus).

Tenity Programs | Open (varies by program)
Global (multiple cities listed; program availability and deadlines vary).

That’s a wrap for December! Wishing everyone a very happy holidays.

Thank you and good luck out there.

Ben Lakoff, CFA
https://twitter.com/benlakoff

Welcome to the November Deal Flow Digest, including every crypto / web3 funding round we tracked last month, as well as the ALL the deals, and the recent hackathon/demo day results (in the links).

Picking Winners, Power Laws in Crypto and Public Markets

Market Sentiment varies based on where you look. In fact, a weird thing is happening this cycle.

From the outside, it looks like crypto finally got everything it wanted… We have favorable legislation. Spot ETFs are hoovering up BTC. Stablecoins are going mainstream. Corporates and even sovereigns are adding Bitcoin to their balance sheets. Big tech is experimenting with or integrating stablecoins.

If you only skim headlines, it feels like “number go up” technology is working for the entire “crypto” asset class.

But if you actually live in this industry, and spend time with “crypto-native” people the sentiment often feels… pretty bad.

Why? Perhaps because most crypto-native portfolios are heavily tilted toward non-BTC assets. And outside BTC (and a handful of large caps), most of the market is still far off the highs, or even below post-FTX levels.

For example: Taking a basket of the top 50 altcoins - not obscure microcaps, but the big recognizable names and comparing that basket to where it was right after the FTX collapse in late 2022…. The result: broadly, below its post-FTX levels:

So the regulatory/institutional backdrop is the best it’s ever been, but if you didn’t rotate into the right few names, you don’t feel like you’re in a bull market at all. The majority of “crypto” has performed.. Not great.

So being invested in “crypto” is not enough. This is a game dominated by a tiny handful of winners.

Is this concentration of winners actually unusual? Not really.

If you zoom out on U.S. equities since the 1920s, the distribution of returns is brutally skewed.

Some banger facts. ALL the net wealth in the US stock market since 1926 has been generated by just 3.4% of companies. In other words, ~97% of all stocks have barely contributed to long-term shareholder wealth creation.

Just 0.26% of publicly traded stocks have created HALF of all wealth.

That’s a power law.

If you owned that small concentration of companies, the stock market looks like the greatest wealth-creation engine in history. If you owned the rest, your experience was… not great.

The empirical evidence is clear: public equity returns are not normally distributed; they follow an extreme “few big winners” distribution.

And that has consequences for how indices evolve over time.The benchmark most investors think of as a “broad” or “diversified” exposure to equities is, in practice, anything but.

The top of the S&P 500 has become increasingly concentrated. The largest ten stocks now make up ~40% of the index, compared with a long-term average closer to ~27%. Just 3 stocks (Nvidia, Microsoft, and Apple) represent roughly a fifth of the entire index.

The current crop of Mag7 stocks comprise ~38% of index weight. And if you zoom out further, the ten largest U.S. companies together are worth > $1T more than the entire stock market of Europe.

So when you buy a plain-vanilla S&P 500 ETF, about forty cents of every dollar is effectively a bet on ten companies. Twenty cents is a concentrated wager on three large AI/Big Tech names. The other 490 stocks are there, but they’re not what’s really driving your returns. What looks like broad diversification on the surface is, in practice, a highly concentrated tech-and-AI trade sitting on top of a long tail that barely moves the needle.

The lesson is the same: a small minority of assets account for the bulk of the returns. Concentration in winners leads directly to concentration in the indices and in wealth outcomes.

Now back to crypto. Given how public markets behave, we shouldn’t be surprised that Bitcoin and a small handful of majors soak up most of the value, while a large portion of the long tail goes to zero or massively underperforms.

If anything, crypto amplifies the power-law dynamic.

Issuance and listing frictions are lower, so we get far more experiments. Feedback loops are faster, narratives rotate more violently, and tokens often financialize before real product–market fit exists. A lot of things trade as if they’ll be future winners long before they’ve actually earned that status…the reality is that most will never.

From a distance, crypto looks like public equities with the gain knob turned up: higher volatility, faster cycles, more experiments, and more brutal selection.

“I have crypto exposure” is not a useful statement. Power laws on power laws. Being allocated to “crypto” isn’t enough, concentration into the right crypto assets is essential - much like the public markets. The composition of your exposure is far more important than the label.

The uncomfortable truth is that most crypto assets will underperform. A small slice will capture almost all the long-term value. And whether this market feels “euphoric,” “sideways,” or “dead” to you personally will largely depend on whether you own that slice in size.

Being “allocated to crypto” is table stakes. In a power-law market, the real game is picking winners and having the conviction to let them dominate your results.

You don’t need to own everything. You just need to own the few things that matter, for long enough, in a size that counts.

Top 10 Crypto Funding Rounds

Kalshi | Undisclosed | DeFi | $1.00B | 2025-11-20
Kalshi, a federally regulated event-based prediction market, raised $1 billion at an $11 billion valuation in a round led by returning backers Sequoia Capital and CapitalG, with participation from a16z, Paradigm, Anthos and Neo.

Tharimmune | Post-IPO | CeFi | $540M | 2025-11-04
Tharimmune raised $540 million in a post-IPO private placement led by DRW and Liberty City Ventures to kickstart a canton coin–based treasury strategy. The move makes Tharimmune one of the first public companies to fully align its balance sheet and validator operations with the Canton Network.

Ripple | Undisclosed | Infrastructure | $500M | 2025-11-05
Ripple, the crypto payments company, raised $500 million at a $40 billion valuation in a round anchored by Fortress Investment Group, Citadel Securities, Pantera Capital, Galaxy Digital, Brevan Howard and Marshall Wace. The funding will help Ripple expand its cross-border settlement network and deepen partnerships with institutional clients.

Lava | Undisclosed | CeFi | $200M | 2025-11-04
Lava, a Bitcoin-focused financial platform, raised $200 million to scale its BTC-backed credit product known as BLOC. The round, led by angel investor Anthony Pompliano, will support global expansion of Lava’s Bitcoin-collateralized lending services for retail and institutional users.

Canaan | Post-IPO | Others | $72M | 2025-11-04
Canaan Inc., a Nasdaq-listed crypto mining hardware firm, secured a $72 million strategic investment from BH Digital, Galaxy Digital and Weiss Asset Management via the purchase of American depositary shares. The deal strengthens Canaan’s capital position as it gears up for the next wave of Bitcoin mining demand.

Lighter | Undisclosed | DeFi | $68M | 2025-11-11
Lighter, an Ethereum-based zk-rollup derivatives exchange, raised $68 million after recording $279.5 billion in 30-day perpetual volume and over $1.15 billion in TVL. The funding will go toward launching new derivatives across multiple chains, deepening liquidity and building monetization tools for institutional traders.

Cypherpunk | Post-IPO | CeFi | $58.9M | 2025-11-12
Cypherpunk Technologies, a newly rebranded public company spun out of Leap Therapeutics, raised $58.9 million from Winklevoss Capital. The capital is earmarked for building a Bitcoin-style treasury focused on accumulating privacy coin Zcash (ZEC) as a long-term strategic asset.

InitVerse | Strategic | Infrastructure | $50M | 2025-11-25
InitVerse, a blockchain infrastructure project, raised $50 million in a strategic round with investors undisclosed. The funding gives InitVerse a sizable war chest to build out its core infrastructure stack and position itself as a key backend provider for Web3 applications.

Obex | Undisclosed | Others | $37M | 2025-11-18
Obex raised $37 million in an undisclosed round backed by Framework Ventures and LayerZero Labs. The capital will help Obex scale its crypto platform and accelerate product development around new on-chain infrastructure.

Future | Strategic | CeFi | $34.76M | 2025-11-05
Future Holdings AG, a Zurich-based Bitcoin treasury company, raised 28 million Swiss francs (about $34.76 million) in a strategic round led by Fulgur Ventures, Nakamoto and TOBAM. Future plans to use the funds to expand its BTC treasury strategy and build regulated infrastructure around long-term Bitcoin balance sheet exposure.

Click to see all of November’s funding rounds here:

November Crypto VC Fund fundraise Announcements

VCs are continuing to announce their new raises.

• 2025-11-06: CMT Digital Closes $136 Million Fund IV to Drive Blockchain’s Next Growth Cycle. CMT Digital raised a $136 million fourth crypto venture fund to back blockchain infrastructure and DeFi startups, one of the larger dedicated onchain VC vehicles in a slower funding market.

• 2025-11-27: DWF Labs Unveils $75 Million DeFi Fund Targeting Perp DEXs and On-Chain Yield Markets. DWF Labs launched a $75 million DeFi-focused investment fund aimed at perp DEXs, decentralized credit markets, and yield protocols, combining capital with liquidity, GTM, and exchange access for portfolio teams.

• 2025-11-28: Revolutionary $300M Fund: Entrée Capital’s Bold Bet on AI and Crypto Projects. Entrée Capital announced a $300 million fund dedicated to early-stage AI and crypto startups across Israel, the UK, Europe, and the US, signaling strong institutional conviction in the AI–blockchain crossover.

As a reminder, if you are interested in learning more about Bankless Ventures Fund II, please fill out this form and we will be in touch!

Hackathons

Upcoming

BNB Chain x YZi Labs Hack Series: Abu Dhabi | December 5–6
Abu Dhabi, UAE (in-person). $160k in prizes.

ZetaChain × Alibaba Cloud Universal AI Hackathon | December 8–21
Online / APAC-focused. Up to $200k in ecosystem grants for AI × Web3 “Universal Apps.”

Ongoing

Mantle Global Hackathon 2025 | October 15 – December 31 (submissions open until January 15, 2026)
Online. $150k in prizes for Real World Assets, DeFi, AI, ZK, infra, and GameFi/Social tracks.

Finished (results in links)

Hedera Africa Hackathon (results tbd) | July - November
Virtual. $1M in prizes

ETHGlobal Buenos Aires | November 21–23
Buenos Aires / virtual. $500k in prizes across multiple Web3 tracks, with winning projects showcased on the ETHGlobal event page.

Demo Days

Upcoming

Solana Demo Day 2025 – Startup Application | December 5, 2025
Dubai, UAE.

Aquarium XRPL Residency Demo Day #7 DeFi II | December 10, 2025
Paris, France.

Finished

Tenity Singapore XRPL Accelerator Demo Day | Batch VII | November 27, 2025.

Accelerator Applications

Outlier Ventures – Post Web Base Camp | Open
Remote / Global.

XDC Network – XDC Accelerator Program (“Let’s Pivot to XDC”) | Open (applications began Dec 1, 2025)
Remote / UAE-focused (RAKDAO + global Web3 teams).

That’s a wrap for November!

Thank you and good luck out there!

Ben Lakoff, CFA
https://twitter.com/benlakoff

Happy Halloween and welcome to the October Deal Flow Digest, your snapshot of every crypto / web3 funding round we tracked last month, plus some a quick update on the State of Venture Capital and a quick one on BTC.

At the bottom, be sure to check out the sheet below with ALL the deals, and the recent hackathon/demo day results (in the links).

State of Venture Q3’25 Report

This month, CB Insights’ 3Q25 State of Venture was released. The takeaway? The 2025 venture market isn’t running out of capital, it’s just more concentrated.

3Q25 venture funding hit $95.6B (the 4th straight quarter >$90B), taking YTD to $310B.

Numbers are up, but deal activity was concentrated in just 5,898 deals, the lowest since Q4’16….bigger checks, fewer companies.

The skew is apparent: mega-rounds ($100M+) made up 62% of all Q3 funding, totaling $59.6B. Median deal sizes keep rising as investors crowd into winners.

The surge was fueled by outsized mega-rounds to new decacorns (10B+ valuations), and the continued dominance of AI. In fact, AI accounted for 51% of 2025 YTD dollars and the US captured 85% of this AI funding. Seven of the ten largest Q3 rounds were AI, led by Anthropic ($13B Series F), OpenAI ($8.3B), and Figure ($1.5B). Noteworthy is that industrial humanoid robots logged 17 deals, the most-active market this quarter….

Early stage remains the majority (~66% of deals YTD) but the mid-stage is thin. What’s apparent is that as a VC, without a path to growth capital, you risk getting priced out downstream.

Liquidity is selectively reopening. M&A rose 8% v 2Q25 to 2,324 (highest since Q3’22) and IPOs increased 45% to 138, led by Figma ($16.1B), Klarna ($15.1B), Figure ($5.3B). Expect DPI to tick upward in 2026 if rates continue to ease as secondaries and strategic sales can pull cash forward.

There’s a lot of data in CB Insights 257 page 3Q25 Venture Report, but it’s clear that the 2025 Venture market isn’t running out of capital, it’s just more concentrated to AI leaders and decacorns; checks are bigger to fewer companies.

Uptober? Downtober? BTC & Debasement.

Crypto and BTC have had a pretty lackluster October.

Historical Octobers have been strong (+60% in 2013, +50% in 2017, +40% in 2021), with the nickname of “Uptober” really sticking.

Oct’25: -5.6%. Not Great.

Fortunately, we don’t rate these things in one month sprints. Zoom out? Historical BTC Price on 31-October over the years:

“Where are we in the cycle?” Is a persistent question. From some analysts I follow, I see 3 major possibilities for how this ‘cycle” might play out:

1. Topped Already: This bearish view suggests the cycle has already peaked due to slowing volume and a lack of net new buyer catalysts.

2. Late Cycle / “One Last Push”: A possibility that the cycle is not over, suggesting one final surge, perhaps leading to a Bitcoin top in November / December’25.

3. Extended Cycle (Super Bull): This super bullish take posits that the cycle will be extended because global liquidity is not over, and money printing continues. Bullish conditions potentially lasting through Q1 and Q2 of 2026, supported by expected Fed rate cuts - helping long-duration risk assets (including crypto).

The four year bitcoin halving cycle is one of crypto’s strongest narrative gravity - a very deeply held belief by crypto natives. Ironically, once a pattern is universally expected, it tends to get priced in and weaken. We’ve already seen “sell-the-event” behavior around well-telegraphed catalysts (ETF launch, major unlocks).

Unfortunately, timing is (still) very hard. From 2017–2024, simply holding BTC returned ~8.5×.

However, if you were to miss the 10 best days over that span, you’re negative; miss 20 and you’re deeply negative.

The difference between being up 8x and being down 20+% hinged on being present for just 10 key days.

The point isn’t “never sell”...it’s that timing tax + slippage + re-entry friction make perfect cycle-trading unrealistic.

I think with all the cycle talks it’s important to remember: If you’re structurally bullish on digital, censorship-resistant assets, a default “own a core allocation and rebalance around it” beats heroic timing for most investors (not to mention less stressful).

As discussed in previous posts, I continue to think the debasement trade is in full effect and continues to be. In fact it’s less of a “debasement trade” versus a “debasement secular trend.” You don’t sell rallies, you buy dips. It’s a currency issue, the decisions we have made over the last 30 years that are coming home to roost - as demonstrated by Gold’s price this year.

Why debasement? Debt & Demographics. A few charts :)

Debt & deficits: Public debt continues to set new highs (>$38T); servicing costs are policy-relevant.

Liquidity: Easing cycles (or expectations thereof) tend to support longer-duration assets: tech, crypto, and anything with secular cash-flow optionality. Purchasing-power erosion will continue.

My bias remains. Debasement trade is in full effect and will continue to be - but will monitor liquidity.

Top 10 Crypto Funding Rounds

Polymarket | Strategic | Infrastructure | $2.00B | 2025-10-07
Polymarket, the world’s largest prediction market, raised $2B at a $9B valuation in a strategic round led by Intercontinental Exchange (ICE). Traders use Polymarket to forecast real-world outcomes, with over $202M in prediction volume in 2024 alone.

Galaxy Digital | Post-IPO | CeFi | $460M | 2025-10-10
Galaxy raised $460M in a Post-IPO round from an undisclosed institutional investor. The capital will support expansion of Galaxy’s trading, asset management, and investment banking services across the digital asset ecosystem.

Kalshi | Undisclosed | DeFi | $300M | 2025-10-09
Kalshi, a federally regulated event-based prediction market, secured $300M in a new round led by Sequoia and a16z, bringing its valuation to $5B. The platform supports crypto deposits and offers retail access to trade event contracts.

DDC | Post-IPO | Others | $124M | 2025-10-08
DDC Enterprise (NYSE: DDC) raised $124M in a Post-IPO round as it formalized its transition to a Bitcoin treasury model, integrating BTC into its corporate reserve strategy as a core financial asset.

Meanwhile | Undisclosed | Infrastructure | $82M | 2025-10-06
Bitcoin-native life insurer Meanwhile raised $82M from Pantera, Apollo, Bain Capital Crypto, Haun Ventures, and others. It offers the first life insurance policies denominated in BTC—designed for crypto-native clients seeking long-term hedging.

Daylight | Undisclosed | Others | $75M | 2025-10-16
Daylight, a decentralized energy network (DePIN), raised $75M to build out its home energy incentive platform. Backers included a16z, Coinbase Ventures, Crucible Capital, Not Boring Capital, and Room40 among others.

Better Payment Network | Seed | Infrastructure | $50M | 2025-10-14
BPN secured $50M in seed funding led by YZi Labs (fka Binance Labs) to build a global stablecoin payments layer across G7 and emerging markets. The network leverages BNB Chain and stablecoin liquidity for cross-border settlements.

Jito | Undisclosed | DeFi | $50M | 2025-10-16
a16z Crypto invested $50M into Jito, a Solana-based MEV and staking infrastructure provider. The raise supports Jito’s mission to improve validator profitability while protecting users from harmful MEV practices.

Prenetics | Post-IPO | CeFi | $48M | 2025-10-27
Prenetics (Nasdaq: PRE), a health sciences firm, raised $48M through a public offering led by Dominari Securities. The company is pursuing a Bitcoin treasury strategy that links its consumer revenue with BTC accumulation.

Coinflow | Series A | Web3 | $25M | 2025-10-07
Coinflow, which builds stablecoin payment rails for web3 businesses, raised $25M in a Series A led by Pantera Capital, with participation from Coinbase Ventures, Jump, and Reciprocal Ventures. The platform aims to compete with Stripe and Square.

Click to see all of October’s funding rounds here:

October Crypto VC Fund fundraise Announcements

VCs are continuing to announce their new raises.

• 2025‑10‑14: Mo Shaikh launches $50 million fund Maximum Frequency Ventures focused on Web3 infrastructure, consumer crypto, and AI‑native networks; the fund emphasizes a hands‑on, operator‑led model.

• 2025‑10‑08: YZi Labs introduces $1 billion Builder Fund for the BNB Chain ecosystem targeting DeFi, RWA, AI, DeSci, payments and wallets on BNB Chain.

• 2025‑10‑02: Lisk launches $15 million fund for Web3 projects in Africa, Latin America & Southeast Asia to support infrastructure, tooling, and applications in emerging markets.

• 2025‑10‑01: Foresight Ventures launches $50 million Stablecoin Infrastructure Fund devoted to the full stablecoin value chain, including issuance, payments, FX, and real‑world assets.

As a reminder, if you are interested in learning more about Bankless Ventures Fund II, please fill out this form and we will be in touch!

Hackathons

Upcoming

ETHGlobal Buenos Aires | Nov 21 - 23
Buenos Aires. $500k in prizes.

BUIDL AI Hackathon 2026 | Jan 9 - 11, 2026
Lisbon. Prizes TBD.

Finished (results TBD)

Hedera Africa Hackathon | July - November
Virtual. $1M in prizes

Colosseum Cypherpunk | Sep 25 - October 30
Virtual. $2.5M in prizes

ETHGlobal Online | Oct 10 - 31
Virtual. $100k in prizes.

Demo Days

Past

Outlier Ventures Post Web Demo Day | Oct 5
Virtual

a16z Speedrun | Oct 7
San Francisco

Accelerator Applications

Outlier Injective Ecosystem Builder Catalyst | Apply by Oct 31
Virtual

Alliance | Apply by Nov 5
Virtual

That’s a wrap for October!

Thank you and good luck out there!

Ben Lakoff, CFA
https://twitter.com/benlakoff

I was at Token2049 in Singapore this week and although I didn’t attend the main event, dominating all the talk was Stablecoins / RWAs, PerpDEXes and BTC - and where we are in the cycle.

Happy BTC ATH Day to those who celebrate :)

Everything’s up… in dollars. What if the denominator is the variable? Price the same assets in gold or BTC and the picture flips: equities and housing look weak. The point isn’t that assets are exploding; the denominator is moving.

Call it a unit-of-account slippage. It explains why the system feels “off”, wages don’t keep up, debt balloons, and policy looks reactive. We still speak USD, benchmark in USD, and then wonder why purchasing power doesn’t square with headlines.

This is a normal late-cycle pattern: when the measuring stick weakens, people feel richer in nominal terms, but when you mark to scarcer collateral, the story is flatter….or worse.

Now layer in Raoul Pal’s “Everything Code” and there’s some VERY STRONG positive tailwinds for crypto and long-duration risk assets, namely:

• Debasement: servicing the debt stock requires ongoing balance-sheet expansion somewhere.

• Demographics: aging + slower productivity pushes policymakers toward credit/liquidity over time.

• Liquidity plumbing: QE/QT, TGA, RRP, swap lines—the pipes that push/pull reserves.

It’s all the debasement / liquidity trade. We have a demographic shift and not enough economic activity to service the debt. We need to “grow our way out of debt.”

When system-wide liquidity expands, long-duration risk tends to rip, especially high-beta tech and crypto.

“Global Total Liquidity” (GTL) is Raoul’s measure and it isn’t just M2—it’s a composite of (1) government/CB balance sheets, (2) banking-system liquidity, and (3) policy/“monetary tools” that push/pull reserves and credit.

GTL goes up, NASDAQ / BTC go up. Since 2009, GTL explains 96% variability in Tech Stocks. 90% in Bitcoin. Debate the specifics, perhaps, but the direction is very clear.

Yes, geopolitics, tariffs, and idiosyncratic shocks matter. But zoom out: adoption-driven networks (Tech/AI/crypto) live on the long-duration end of the curve; they’re levered to liquidity and the debasement bid…“Everything else is noise.”

We’re “still early” in a specific sense: US policy is getting less hostile, stablecoins are maturing, RWAs are just starting to move on-chain, and Web2 value chains are being pulled on-chain where it makes sense. “Active wallets/IPs” aren’t perfect, but the rate of change is what matters. AI may be scaling faster, but you can’t own “AI” directly; you can own the internet of value.

Zoom out. Crypto market capitalization will be at 100T in 10 years.

Strap in. If your yardstick is melting, the question isn’t “why are assets up,” it’s what do I own that beats the yardstick?

Top 9 Crypto Funding Rounds

Lots of Digital Asset Treasuries Companies (DATs). Additional funding rounds found in the google sheets link!

Forward Industries | Post-IPO | CeFi | $1.65B | 2025-09-11
Forward Industries is becoming a Solana Treasury Company.

StablecoinX | Post-IPO | DeFi | $530M | 2025-09-06
StablecoinX is a stablecoin issuer that has committed to launching an ENA financial strategy and plans to list on the Nasdaq under the stock code USDE.

Helius Medical Technologies | Post-IPO | Others | $500M | 2025-09-14
A neurotech medical company raising capital to establish a Solana Treasury as part of its platform’s next phase.

Flying Tulip | Seed | DeFi | $200M | 2025-09-28
The latest from DeFi pioneer Andre Cronje, Flying Tulip is an adaptive trading protocol targeting higher returns through a unified liquidity experience.

Fnality | Series C | CeFi | $136M | 2025-09-22
Fnality aims to settle tokenized transactions with peer-to-peer digital cash via DLT infrastructure, growing from its Utility Settlement Coin roots.

Tron Inc | Undisclosed | CeFi | $110M | 2025-09-01
Tron Inc has strengthened its position as the largest public holder of TRX tokens with an expanded treasury of over $220M.

Zero Hash | Series D | CeFi | $104M | 2025-09-22
Zero Hash powers financial system 2.0 by enabling businesses to integrate crypto and modern finance tools directly into their platforms.

Gemini | Private | CeFi | $50M | 2025-09-08
Gemini received a $50M boost from Nasdaq just ahead of its anticipated IPO, alongside regulatory moves to enable tokenized stock trading.

RedotPay | Strategic | Others | $47M | 2025-09-24
RedotPay, a Hong Kong-based crypto payments startup, hit unicorn status after a $47M strategic round fueled by growth in stablecoin adoption.

Click to see all of September’s funding rounds here:

September Crypto VC Fund fundraise Announcements

VCs are continuing to announce their new raises.

• 2025‑09‑18: Archetype announces $100 million Fund III, backing startups in blockchain performance, stablecoin infrastructure, onchain social, and the intersection of AI and crypto.

• 2025‑09‑12: Onigiri Capital launches $50 million blockchain investment fund targeting early-stage protocol, infrastructure, and DeFi builders.

• 2025‑09‑05: Sora Ventures launches Asia’s first Bitcoin treasury fund, with plan to buy $1B in BTC within six months to bridge traditional financial institutions and Bitcoin macro exposure.

As a reminder, if you are interested in learning more about Bankless Ventures Fund II, please fill out this form and we will be in touch!

Hackathons

Upcoming

ETHGlobal Online | Oct 10 - 31
Virtual. $100k in prizes.

ETHGlobal Buenos Aires | Nov 21 - 23
Buenos Aires. $500k in prizes.

Ongoing

Hedera Africa Hackathon | July - November
Virtual. $1M in prizes

Colosseum Cypherpunk | Sep 25 - October 30
Virtual. $2.5M in prizes

Finished (results in links)

World Computer | July 18 - October
Virtual. $300k in prizes

DuckChain X AWS | August 25 - Sept 1
Virtual. $1.1M in prizes

ETHGlobal New Delhi | Sep 26 - 28
New Delhi. $175k in prizes.

Demo Days

Upcoming

a16z Speedrun | Oct 7
San Francisco

Accelerator Applications

Alliance | Apply by Nov 5
Virtual

Stanford Blockchain Accelerator
Virtual

That’s a wrap for September!

Thank you and good luck out there!

Ben Lakoff, CFA
https://twitter.com/benlakoff

Welcome to the August Deal Flow Digest, your snapshot of every crypto / web3 funding round we tracked last month, plus some a quick update on the major US Crypto Regulatory Developments.

At the bottom, be sure to check out the sheet below with ALL the deals, and the recent hackathon/demo day results (in the links).

US Crypto Regulatory Developments

The U.S. is reshaping its approach to crypto oversight. Just since July, the House passed the CLARITY Act, the SEC launched “Project Crypto”, and the Senate Banking Committee released a draft Digital Asset Market Structure bill alongside a request for input from builders.

Staying current on these moves keeps teams competitive if (and when) rules are signed into law. For founders and allocators, tracking these moves isn’t trivia, it’s edge so you can capitalize on a regulated crypto era.

Here’s a look at what’s happened so far.

The CLARITY Act Passes the House

The CLARITY Act cleared the U.S. House of Representatives, a noteworthy inflection point for token projects, policy advocates, and decentralized governance ecosystems.

Supporters argue the measure could kick off a new phase for tokens: one grounded in transparency, decentralization, and regulatory alignment.

Substantively, the Act lays out a two-phase pathway. Tokens begin as investment contracts under SEC oversight where “issuers may raise up to $75 million within a 12-month window” and then transition to digital commodities under CFTC supervision once decentralization criteria are met. Core thresholds include that “no single entity or affiliated group controls more than 20% of token supply or governance power.”

The framework would replace ambiguity with clearer compliance standards and a structured path to U.S. institutional capital as teams build toward decentralization. It also clarifies that once a network attains commodity status, secondary market trading of tokens previously sold in a securities offering will not be treated as securities transactions. This effectively removes a key barrier to U.S. exchange listings and institutional adoption that previously pushed projects offshore.

Next steps: The CLARITY Act now heads to the Senate, where Banking Committee Chairman Tim Scott has advanced a competing market-structure bill (the Responsible Financial Innovation Act of 2025) that builds on CLARITY but introduces several changes. Chairman Scott faces a September 30 deadline to move his bill out of committee, with potential floor action and House–Senate reconciliation targeted for late 2025 or early 2026.

Project Crypto

On July 31, 2025, SEC Chair Paul Atkins announced Project Crypto, an initiative to “modernize securities rules so U.S. markets can operate on-chain.”

The program centers on three priorities that matter to protocol teams:

1. Clear, usable guidelines to determine whether a crypto asset is a security;

2. A path for truly decentralized, non-intermediated software systems to operate with protected status; and

3. An “innovation exemption” allowing both registrants and non-registrants to bring new models to market more quickly.

For builders, this signals a shift from regulation-by-enforcement to frameworks that enable compliant innovation. As Atkins put it, the aim is to move past the era of convoluted offshore structures, “decentralization theater,” and uncertainty over security status. Music to our ears.

Senate Banking Committee Market Structure RFI

The Senate Banking Committee released a discussion draft of its Digital Asset Market Structure legislation along with a Request for Information (RFI) seeking industry input on jurisdictional clarity, decentralization standards, and potential safe-harbor provisions.

The RFI offers protocol teams a direct opportunity to influence how rules are built, signaling a more collaborative posture that incorporates technical expertise from active builders.

Looking Ahead

Together, the CLARITY Act, Project Crypto, and the Senate’s market-structure process point toward clearer lanes for token launches, institutional participation, and day-to-day compliance. Teams that begin aligning to these frameworks now will be best positioned to capitalize on regulatory clarity, allowing them to access U.S. institutional capital while reducing compliance risk as the rulebook takes shape.

Top 10 Crypto Funding Rounds

Lots of Digital Asset Treasuries Companies (DATs). Additional funding rounds found in the google sheets link!

Galaxy Digital | Post-IPO | CeFi | $1.4B | 2025-08-14
Galaxy Digital (NASDAQ: GLXY), a diversified financial services firm in digital assets, raised $1.4B in a Post-IPO round. The company operates across trading, investment banking, mining, and more.

Bullish | IPO | CeFi | $1.11B | 2025-08-12
Bullish (NYSE: BLSH), a digital asset exchange offering deep liquidity and automated market making, raised $1.11B at a $5.4B valuation in its IPO.

ETHZilla | Private | CeFi | $425M | 2025-08-10
ETHZilla, an Ethereum-focused asset manager, raised $425M in a private round backed by Electric Capital, Borderless Capital, and Polychain Capital.

Heritage Distilling | Private | Others | $220M | 2025-08-10
Heritage Distilling (NASDAQ: CASK), a craft spirits company blending whiskey with Web3, raised $220M to support its new $IP token reserve strategy, backed by firms like a16z, Hashed, and Mirana.

Satsuma Technology Plc | Undisclosed | Others | $217.6M | 2025-08-05
Satsuma Technology raised $217.6M, nearly half of which was settled in Bitcoin. The company builds infrastructure and agents on Bittensor and invests in AI-driven subnets.

DeFi Development | Post-IPO | DeFi | $125M | 2025-08-24
DeFi Development Corporation (NASDAQ: DFDV) raised $125M in a Post-IPO round. The company adopted a treasury strategy allocating reserves to Solana (SOL).

IVIX | Series B | Others | $60M | 2025-08-17
IVIX, a blockchain project tackling financial crime and tax transparency with AI, raised $60M in a Series B led by Insight Partners and Citi Ventures.

Thumzup Media Corporation | Post-IPO | Others | $50M | 2025-08-11
Thumzup, a social commerce platform and upcoming Dogecoin miner, raised $50M to expand its peer-influencer marketing and Scrypt-algorithm mining initiatives.

Bit2Me | Undisclosed | CeFi | $35M | 2025-08-06
Spain-based exchange Bit2Me raised $35M in a round led by Tether Ventures, which also acquired a minority stake in the company.

DigiFT | Strategic | DeFi | $25M | 2025-08-20
DigiFT, a DEX for asset-backed tokens and the only one in MAS's regulatory sandbox, raised $25M to scale its AMM-based infrastructure for compliant real-world assets on Ethereum.

Click to see all of August’s funding rounds here:

August Crypto VC Fund fundraise Announcements

VCs are continuing to announce their new raises.

• 2025‑08‑04: Victus Global launches $10 million fund to back low‑cap blockchain projects aimed at second-round financing within its ecosystem and selected partner ventures, backed by its trading, liquidity, and OTC infrastructure.

• 2025‑08‑07: Scenius Capital raises $20 million fund of emerging crypto VC funds (slightly oversubscribed). The firm focuses on backing first‑ and second‑time fund managers with niche domain or geographic advantage, with strategic GP support from ParaFi.

• 2025‑08‑25: OKX announces $100 million X Layer ecosystem fund to support builders on its Ethereum L2 network, X Layer—outpacing Coinbase's similar Base ecosystem fund.

• 2025‑08‑27: Unified Ventures secures $30 million for RWA and stablecoin investments targeted at projects like FinChain and AlloyX focused on real‑world assets and stablecoins.

As a reminder, if you are interested in learning more about Bankless Ventures Fund II, please fill out this form and we will be in touch!

Hackathons

Upcoming

ETHGlobal New Delhi | Sep 26 - 28
New Delhi. $175k in prizes.

Ongoing

DuckChain X AWS | August 25 - Sept 1
Virtual. $1.1M in prizes

Broker API Hackathon | May - Oct
Virtual. $1M USDT in prizes.

World Computer | July 18 - October
Virtual. $300k in prizes

Hedera Africa Hackathon | July - November
Virtual. $1M in prizes

Finished (results in links)

ETHGlobal NY | Aug 15 - 17
NYC. $225k in prizes.

Unite Defi | July 25 - Aug 6
Virtual. $525k in prizes.

Demo Days

Upcoming

Orange Summer '25 Demo Day | Sept 23
Virtual

Accelerator Applications

Alliance | Apply by Nov 5
Virtual

That’s a wrap for August!

Thank you and good luck out there!

Ben Lakoff, CFA
https://twitter.com/benlakoff

Welcome to the July Deal Flow Digest, your snapshot of every crypto / web3 funding round we tracked last month, plus some macro context shaping July’s term sheets.

At the bottom, be sure to check out the sheet below with ALL the deals, and the recent hackathon/demo day results (in the links).

Stablecoins. as a Trojan horse for fiscal dominance

The U.S. government has a debt problem. All governments do, but America is outsized, and growing fast. With over $34 trillion on the books…and roughly $6 trillion of it rolling over every few months via short-term Treasury bills….someone needs to keep buying.

But the usual suspects are fading. Overseas demand is drying up. Countries like China are steadily unwinding their Treasury holdings, now sitting at multi-year lows. Meanwhile, Washington just passed another “One Big Beautiful Bill,” and as Lynn Alden puts it, nothing stops this train. The message? More spending is coming.

So how do you square soaring issuance with shrinking demand?

Simple: grow your way out. Inflate asset prices, stimulate financial markets, and…find new buyers for all that debt.

And that’s exactly what’s happening.

Pull out all the stops? Grow the asset base, loosen banking rules (e.g. supplementary leverage ratio, amongst others), loosen investor accreditation rules, sprinkle a dash of “crypto in your 401(k)”.... And the biggest lever: push stablecoins into the mainstream. The goal isn’t so subtle.

Combined, Tether and Circle would be the 18th-largest holder of US debt—trailing South Korea but surpassing Germany. If we take a closer look at the 2024 calendar year, Tether was the 7th largest buyer of US treasuries behind the UK and Singapore, while the largest sellers were China and Japan.

When dollars go onchain as stablecoins, every stablecoin is backed by government paper. Voilà: each stablecoin minted becomes a new buyer of U.S. Treasuries.

The GENIUS Act changes the game

Signed in July, the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for US Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act does three things:

1. Requires 1-for-1 reserves in “U.S. dollars or short-term Treasuries.”

2. Mandates monthly reserve disclosures for transparency.

3. Lets banks issue their own stablecoins.

Issuers must keep every token fully reserved in cash or short-dated Treasury notes and report those reserves each month. That single requirement: one token, one government dollar behind it, turns stablecoins into a permanent bid for U.S. debt.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent now projects a $3.7 trillion stablecoin market by 2030—a 15× move from today’s ~250B market.. At that size, fully-reserved issuers would be forced to park well over $3 trillion into Treasuries, enough to cover roughly half of today’s entire bill stock and materially suppress front-end yields.

Now imagine a tiny edit down the road: drop the word “short-dated.” Today the statute specifies “short-term” Treasuries. Remove that one adjective in a future amendment and Bessent could nudge issuers to buy 2-year notes next month, 10-years the month after, fine-tuning yields at Treasury’s will. Suddenly the Treasury can nudge issuers to shop anywhere along the curve, easing pressure wherever yields look jumpy, all without the Fed firing a shot. That’s not regulation; that’s yield curve control by design.

That is fiscal dominance with a fintech veneer.

Why Washington loves this flywheel

What a phase shift.

Crypto may still be polarizing in Washington…but stablecoins? They’re the bipartisan darling. Pump “crypto” so we can pump “stablecoins” aka Washington’s stealth solution to structural debt demand.

2 tweets from yesterday 30-July-25:

Why? Stablecoin economics are brutally simple:

1. A user wires a dollar to the issuer.

2. The issuer mints a stablecoin (digital dollar) into the user’s wallet.

3. The issuer parks the dollar in a Treasury and keeps the yield.

No interest paid to holders. No FDIC insurance required. Just clean, recurring revenue off government debt. It’s simple, ultra-profitable, and the perfect vehicle for Washington’s needs.

This model has made Tether the most profitable company in the world per employee, and Circle the hottest IPO of the year. Stablecoin issuers are already among the top 20 holders of U.S. Treasuries…and that’s before the banks get involved in a major way.

Now that the GENIUS Act opens the door, you can bet JPMorgan, Citi, and fintechs are spinning up their own stablecoins. And they are. At scale, this becomes a privatized form of yield curve control, driven not by the Fed, but by market-based demand for on-chain dollars.

And they’re not hiding the plan. As Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said at the GENIUS Act signing:

“Stablecoins represent a revolution in digital finance. The dollar now has an internet-native payment rail that is fast, frictionless, and free of middlemen. This groundbreaking technology will buttress the dollar’s status as the global reserve currency, expand access to the dollar economy for billions across the globe, and lead to a surge in demand for U.S. Treasuries, which back stablecoins. The GENIUS Act provides the fast-growing stablecoin market with the regulatory clarity it needs to grow into a multitrillion-dollar industry. The signing of this bill marks a seminal moment for digital assets and dollar supremacy.”

Fiscal dominance is here, just not the way you pictured it.

Issuers, builders, and the dollar all win

Stablecoins may have started as a crypto-native curiosity, but now, they deliver an unexpected triple-win for America. A rare win-win-win for USA with stablecoins…and it entrenches dollar hegemony in the process. Who wins?

• Banks (stablecoin issuers) finally get a digital deposit product with fat margins and tiny overhead.

• Developers gain a programmable, globally accessible dollar rail. One that’s built for the internet, composable with DeFi, and natively supports everything from AI-driven payments to low-cost remittances and micropayments..

• Treasury officials secure a fresh pool of captive buyers, who are legally required to hold treasuries, bringing persistent, programmatic demand for US Debt without relying on foreign creditors.

What’s more, this alignment isn’t fragile, it’s self-reinforcing.

More demand for stablecoins → more Treasuries purchased by issuers → higher interest revenue → greater issuer profitability & incentives → more investment in ecosystem (developers, integrations, on/off‑ramps) → improved UX & use cases → more adoption → more demand for stablecoins.

It’s a flywheel. And at the center of it is the dollar. Now not just the world’s reserve currency, but its reserve protocol. A self-feeding loop that cements the dollar’s dominance on-chain.

What it means for the broader crypto stack

As trillions of new digital dollars flow onto public ledgers, the crypto stack starts to transform and the sandbox era ends:

• DeFi morphs from trading toys to real financial plumbing.

• Bitcoin looks sturdier as digital gold in a dollar-stablecoin world.

• Smart-contract platforms (ETH, SOL) soak up genuine economic activity, shifting from speculative casinos to execution layers for real economic activity.

• Tokenized stocks, bonds, and other real-world assets finally have a compliant cash leg, clearing the path for 24/7 capital markets.

Perhaps reminiscent of eurodollars in the ‘60s, ADRs in the ‘90s, or ETFs in the ‘00s, the liquidity for tokenized assets will start first on the margins and then move toward the center.

Today, you can trade tokenized stocks and bonds onchain. But it’s still early. Full ownership is muddied by offchain wrappers—SPVs, custodians, intermediaries.

The real shift happens as confidence and liquidity grow. Over time, we move toward native, fully onchain financial instruments—accessible globally, 24/7, without gatekeepers. That’s the default future DeFi is building toward.

The takeaway for investors

Stablecoins aren’t just plumbing for crypto traders anymore. They’re morphing into the Treasury’s stealth weapon: a structural, always-on bid for U.S. debt… disguised as financial innovation. A perfect stealth debt-distribution network.

The investment story shifts from “crypto goes up” to “crypto becomes infrastructure.” Perhaps the opportunity lies in the rails, e.g. issuers, custody, base layers…before the flywheel spins at full speed.

Fiscal dominance has “entered the chat,” and stablecoins are the microphone.

Top 11 Crypto Funding Rounds

Strategy | IPO | CeFi | $2.52B | 2025-07-29
Strategy (Nasdaq: MSTR) upsized its Stretch Perpetual Preferred Stock offering from $500M to $2.52B. The firm continues its dual focus: expanding enterprise analytics and acquiring Bitcoin as a long-term treasury asset.

MARA | Post-IPO | Infrastructure | $950M | 2025-07-27
MARA (NASDAQ: MARA), a global leader in digital asset compute, raised $950M in a Post-IPO round to expand operations securing blockchain ledgers and converting stranded energy into economic value.

Mill City Ventures III | Post-IPO | Others | $450M | 2025-07-30
Mill City Ventures III (NASDAQ: MCVT), a non-bank lender and specialty finance firm, raised $450M and launched a new SUI Treasury initiative as part of its digital asset expansion.

Upexi | Undisclosed | DeFi | $200M | 2025-07-10
Upexi raised $200M through equity and Solana-backed convertible notes to double its Solana treasury. The move reflects institutional confidence in blockchain-based treasury strategies.

Satsuma Technology Plc | Post-IPO | Others | $134.32M | 2025-07-23
Satsuma Technology (formerly Tao Alpha) raised $134.32M to build AI agents and infrastructure on Bittensor, marking a UK record for Bitcoin treasury initiatives.

Agora | Private | CeFi | $50M | 2025-07-09
Agora raised $50M to grow AUSD, its white-label stablecoin offering. The firm aims to bring low-cost, USD-backed financial tools to underserved global markets.

RD Technologies | Extended Series A | CeFi | $40M | 2025-07-29
Hong Kong-based RD Technologies raised $40M ahead of the region’s stablecoin licensing rollout. The firm joins HKMA’s stablecoin sandbox, helping shape Web3 financial infrastructure.

Hilbert Group | Post-IPO | Others | $31.21M | 2025-07-14
Hilbert Group, a digital asset investment firm focused on quantitative strategies, raised $31.21M to enhance its algorithmic trading operations.

Distinct Possibility Studios | Undisclosed | Web3 | $30.5M | 2025-07-03
Distinct Possibility Studios raised $30.5M to launch its Web3 FPS title “Reaper Actual” on Steam and Epic. The studio specializes in large-scale multiplayer blockchain-integrated games.

Stable | Seed | Infrastructure | $28M | 2025-07-30
Stable, a Layer 1 blockchain launched by Bitfinex and Tether, raised $28M to expand gas-free USDT payments and stablecoin-native smart contracts.

Bitzero | Undisclosed | Others | $25M | 2025-07-23
Kevin O’Leary-backed Bitzero raised $25M to expand its crypto-powered, environmentally sustainable data center operations.

Click to see all of July’s funding rounds here:

July Crypto VC Fund fundraise Announcements

VCs are continuing to announce their new raises.

• 2025‑07‑22: Dan Tapiero launches $500 million fund under new 50T brand to back growth‑stage blockchain and Web3 companies. The rebrand reflects his projection that the crypto ecosystem will reach $50 trillion in the next decade.

• 2025‑07‑10: Propel Venture Partners closes $100 M Fund V to expand investments in technologies reshaping the financial services ecosystem.

• 2025‑07‑08: Ego Death Capital raises $100 M to finance Bitcoin‑focused startups aimed at Series A software companies generating $1M–$3M revenue, with early portfolio including Roxom, Relai, and Breez.

• 2025‑07‑03: Ondo Finance and Pantera launch $250 M Ondo Catalyst initiative to accelerate tokenization of real‑world assets and on‑chain capital markets. Pantera Capital leads strategic capital deployment.

As a reminder, if you are interested in learning more about Bankless Ventures Fund II, please fill out this form and we will be in touch!

Hackathons

Upcoming

ETHGlobal NY | Aug 15 - 17
NYC. $225k in prizes.

ETHGlobal New Delhi | Sep 26 - 28
New Delhi. $175k in prizes.

Ongoing

Broker API Hackathon | May - Oct
Virtual. $1M USDT in prizes.

Unite Defi | July 25 - Aug 6
Virtual. $525k in prizes.

World Computer | July 18 - October
Virtual. $300k in prizes

Finished (results in links)

ETHGlobal Cannes | July 4 - 6
Cannes, France. $300k in prizes.

Hacking Paris | July 11 - 13
Paris, France. $150k in prizes.

Demo Days

Upcoming

SUI Demo Pitch Day | Aug 7
Vietnam

Tenity Singapore XRPL Accelerator Cohort VI Demo Day | Aug 14
Singapore

EASY Residency x MVB Demo Day | Aug 15
NYC

That’s a wrap for July!

Thank you and good luck out there!

Ben Lakoff, CFA
https://twitter.com/benlakoff

Welcome to the June Deal Flow Digest, your snapshot of every crypto / web3 funding round we tracked last month, plus some macro context shaping June’s term sheets.

At the bottom, be sure to check out the sheet below with ALL the deals, and the recent hackathon/demo day results (in the links).

Robinhood Crosses the Rubicon

Robinhood just crossed the rubicon from stockbroker to crypto super-app, and that matters for every capital-markets professional reading this.

As opposed to writing about what’s dominating the headlines - treasury companies, BTC, or stablecoins again - I’ll double click on a few announcements in the past week.

On 25-June, Republic announced that they’ll be tokenizing private companies and bringing them on chain. Then, during Robinhood’s presentation yesterday at ETHCC, they also mentioned that this was part of their roadmap. Pre-IPO access has been tried before, but this time the rails are different, and the players are serious.

Why does it matter? Because private markets are massive: a $4T+ asset class, traditionally locked up and illiquid. With companies staying private longer, tokenizing these shares opens the door to new forms of liquidity and distribution. A tokenized pre-IPO share can trade, settle, and compose like any other crypto asset.

“Democratizing access to new asset classes” is very exciting for the average person. I believe there is absolutely demand - and eventually it might offer companies a compelling alternative to a traditional IPO.

In addition to the pre-IPO private company access announcement, Robinhood made some very noteworthy crypto-specific announcements.

I hadn’t been paying super close attention to Robinhood, but damn… they’ve been busy. What have they been up to? Here’s a list of the key developments so far in 2025:

• Tokenized U.S. equities for Europe: 200-plus U.S. stocks and ETFs now trade 24/5 as on-chain “stock tokens,” with dividends paid automatically and private-company tokens (OpenAI, SpaceX) on the roadmap.

• Home-grown blockchain (“Robinhood Chain”): An Arbitrum-based Layer-2 built for real-world-asset (RWA) tokenization, self-custody, and cross-chain bridges.

• New derivatives & yield: Perpetual futures (up to 3X leverage) live for EU users; Ethereum and Solana staking available in the U.S. app.

• M&A: Closed $200M takeover of Bitstamp (50+ global crypto licenses) and agreed to buy Canada’s WonderFi for $179M.

• USDG stablecoin via Global Dollar Network: MiCA-compliant dollar token now settling trades across the EU.

• Regulatory tailwind: SEC probe into Robinhood Crypto ended with no enforcement action in February.

Big moves.

First, why is Robinhood focused so much on adding crypto? Because it’s working, their numbers don’t lie. Crypto trading volume hit $71B in Q4 2024 (+400% YoY) driving $358M in transaction revenue which is more than half of their total.

This is a big deal. As of 1Q25, Robinhood has 14.4M MAUs and $193B in AUC, $38B of which is crypto. For context, Coinbase has 8.8M MAUs.

They are…doing all the things. Is Robinhood building the compliant, consumer-friendly crypto super-app we’ve been waiting for?

And it’s not alone. With players like Robinhood and Republic tokenizing private shares and regulators finally offering clearer guidance, 2025 may be the year TradFi pipes finally plug into crypto rails in a more seamless fashion. If users can trade pre-IPO equity, perpetuals, and stablecoins in the same (chain abstracted, clean UX, etc.) wallet with all the benefits of 24/7 markets, composability, and instant settlement - the old “IPO window” starts to feel like legacy tech.

The future of private equity might not just be online. It might be on-chain.

Top 11 Crypto Funding Rounds

BitMine | Private | Treasury Company | $250M | 2025-06-29
BitMine Immersion Technologies, a Bitcoin mining firm with operations in Texas and Trinidad, raised $250M to launch an ETH treasury. Thomas Lee, known for his bullish crypto takes, joined as Chairman.

Kalshi | Series C | Prediction Market | $185M | 2025-06-25
Kalshi, a federally regulated prediction market where users can bet on real-world events, raised $185M at a $2B valuation. The raise reflects growing interest in event-driven trading platforms.

Digital Asset | Strategic | Infrastructure | $135M | 2025-06-23
Digital Asset, the firm behind the Canton privacy-focused blockchain, raised $135M to expand its enterprise infrastructure stack for modern business applications.

World Liberty Financial | Undisclosed | DeFi | $100M | 2025-06-25
World Liberty Financial, the Trump-branded crypto platform aiming to function as a digital asset bank, raised $100M in backing to support borrowing, lending, and investing services.

Hypernative | Series B | Security | $40M | 2025-06-09
Hypernative, a provider of real-time cyber threat prevention tools for Web3 protocols, raised $40M to continue protecting digital asset managers and applications from zero-day attacks and governance risks.

Yupp | Seed | Infrastructure | $33M | 2025-06-12
Yupp, an AI blockchain platform for comparing and rating model outputs, raised $33M to help users generate post-training datasets and reward feedback on model performance — all on-chain.

Niural | Series A | Payments | $31M | 2025-06-25
Niural, a web3-native payroll and HR platform built on Polygon, raised $31M to scale its compliant crypto payments engine and real-time salary infrastructure for global teams.

Turnkey | Series B | Infrastructure | $30M | 2025-06-08
Turnkey, a private key infrastructure startup founded by Coinbase alums, raised $30M to simplify wallet security and help developers launch crypto apps with less friction.

Noah | Undisclosed | Stablecoin | $22M | 2025-06-09
Noah, a stablecoin payments platform with enterprise-level compliance and real-time settlement, raised $22M to scale its global payment solutions.

IOST | Strategic | DeFi | $21M | 2025-06-05
IOST, a modular blockchain focused on tokenizing real-world assets (RWAs), raised $21M to support its global rollout of compliant infrastructure and high-TPS architecture.

OneBalance | Series A | Infrastructure | $20M | 2025-06-11
OneBalance, a cross-chain infrastructure startup building "Credible Accounts" for on-chain commitments, raised $20M to expand its framework beyond smart accounts and EOA limitations.

Click to see all of June’s funding rounds here:

June Crypto VC Fund fundraise Announcements

VCs are continuing to announce their new raises.

• 2025-06-26: Galaxy Ventures Fund I closes oversubscribed at over $175 million to back early-stage infrastructure, protocols, stablecoins, payments, and tokenization for the onchain economy.

• 2025-06-19: Yolo Investments completes €100 million Fund II combining €50 million external capital and €50 million from Yolo Group, investing across iGaming, blockchain, fintech, with 12 companies already backed

• 2025-06-02: No Limit Holdings closes oversubscribed Fund II focused on early-stage native crypto projects, anticipating the digital asset market to reach $15 trillion by 2030.

• 2025-06-08: SMBC Nikko invests in Hashed Ventures’ Fund III in a strategic move to bridge Japan’s financial sector with Web3 through Hashed’s global blockchain VC platform.

• 2025-06-23: Chorus One CIO launches $20 million crypto fund targeting early-stage investments across diverse blockchain ecosystems.

As a reminder, if you are interested in learning more about Bankless Ventures Fund II, please fill out this form and we will be in touch!

Hackathons

Upcoming

ETHGlobal Cannes | July 4 - 6
Cannes, France. $300k in prizes.

Hacking Paris | July 11 - 13
Paris, France. $150k in prizes.

World Computer | July 18 - October
Virtual. $300k in prizes

Unite Defi| July 25 - Aug 6
Virtual. $525k in prizes.

ETHGlobal NY | Aug 15 - 17
NYC. $225k in prizes.

Ongoing

Broker API Hackathon | May - Oct
Virtual. $1M USDT in prizes.

Finished (results in links)

Permissionless IV | June 22-23
Brooklyn, NYC. $100K in prizes.

Demo Days

Upcoming

VCC Demo Day | July 28
Virtual

Finished (results in links)

Techstars Web3 Demo Day | June 4

Outlier Ventures Post Web Demo Day | June 25
New York

Base Batch Demo Day | June 27

Open Accelerator Applications

Blockchain Founders Group | Opening July (join the waitlist!)
Virtual

WinterMute Construct | Open
Virtual

Stanford Blockchain Accelerator | Open
Virtual

That’s a wrap for June!

Thank you and good luck out there!

Ben Lakoff, CFA
https://twitter.com/benlakoff

Welcome to the May Deal Flow Digest, your snapshot of every crypto / web3 funding round we tracked last month, plus some macro context shaping June’s term sheets.

May was filled with more public companies buying Bitcoin (and other crypto). This was started by Michael Saylor at MicroStrategy, who has bought $40B worth of BTC since he started in 2020. I wrote about these “MicroStrategy-style” strategies in last months’ newsletter, so instead this month we get a bit more dystopian with markets and macro given the tone change with DOGE.

At the bottom, be sure to check out the sheet below with ALL the deals, and the recent hackathon/demo day results (in the links).

Choose Your Own Collapse: Inflate, Innovate… or Default

“Fiscal responsibility”? “Austerity”?

That dream is over. Boomers will not surrender entitlements, and no political party has the stomach to slash spending.

The tune has changed over the last month and we’ve seemingly abandoned / buried the DOGE deficit reduction plan and moved on…

When debt was low, the Fed could tweak rates and declare victory. However, federal net interest hit 3.1% of-GDP this quarter. We’ve passed the point where higher rates fix anything; they just light the fuse faster.

Now the U.S. carries $36 trn in federal debt—or $175 trn once you count unfunded promises.¹ With fewer workers and more retirees, debt + demographics > Fed tweaks.

Welcome to fiscal dominance. Welcome to the debt death spiral.

The 5 Options

Pitchforks and torches? How do we get out of this precarious situation we find ourselves in?

Cutting spending won’t work. So the way I see it we have 5 options:

1. Hike taxes massively
   Translation: Soak the productive class.
   Reality: Political suicide note.

2. Slash entitlements
   Translation: Touch Social Security and Medicare.
   Reality: Double suicide note, no party survives it.

3. Inflate the debt away
   Translation: Permanent money-printer go brrr.
   Reality: Stealth tax on savers; already happening, but accelerates (rapidly).

4. Grow GDP via tech
   Translation: AI copilots, humanoid robots, abundant energy.
   Reality: Needs an exponential productivity boom, but it’s the most optimistic path.

5. Default / restructure
   Translation: Hard reset on Treasury and entitlement promises.
   Reality: Nukes pensions, insurers, and banks…politically framed as “un-American,” yet always lurking in the background.

Yes, there are additional options but I think they nestle under these 5 options. Privatize government assets, e.g. sell federal land, spectrum, postal real estate, or the TVA to raise cash, this will barely move the needle.

Let’s dig in to 3 / 4 / 5 and how they’d impact investment decisions.

Print, Debase, Repeat (#3)

This is already happening: M2 is up ~40 % since 2020. As our debt payments increase and we enter a debt spiral, this accelerates. Quickly.

Monetizing deficits is a stealth tax on savers as dollar purchasing power erodes. This fuels financial nihilism as the wealth gap widens; political rage simmers.

Out-Innovate the Debt (#4)

The more optimistic path. But honestly productivity has to go parabolic. Some viable paths include:

• AI copilots that 10× white-collar output

• Humanoid robots that 10× blue-collar output

• Cheap, abundant energy (fusion, next-gen solar)

If we accelerate fast enough, our mountain of debt begins to look a lot less of a worry. Energy is a whole other discussion with China’s energy production v. USA….

Default (#5)

A very bad option for everyone. This would look like a blunt restructuring that would vaporize pensions, insurers, and foreign creditors overnight.

There are some other flavors that also look bad:

• Financial repression 2.0: force banks & savers into bonds that yield below inflation.

• One-off wealth grabs: special levies, “patriotic” bond conversions, retirement-account nationalizations.

• CBDC: swap out Treasuries for digital reserves, then quietly mark them to zero.

All rhyme with default; none are advertised as such.

Peak Financial Nihilism

While policymakers juggle #3, pray for #4, and fear #5, markets have slipped into end-stage fiat theater: “Please ser, give me volatility. I can’t make it any other way.”

Many young people, facing rising costs of living, student debt, and unattainable homeownership, turn to gambling as a high-risk, high-reward escape. E.g., the 200% increase in online gambling spending since 2019 and the popularity of parlay bets (which offer high payouts but lower odds) are cited as examples of this trend. These behaviors reflect a "swing for the fences" mentality, where individuals feel they have little to lose in a system they perceive as unfair.

Clicks beat cash flow; dopamine beats dividends. This is not investing…it’s survival.

The Fourth-Turning Backdrop

A classic for some time amongst crypto circles, “The Fourth Turning” by Strauss & Howe predicted a generational crisis in the late 2020s. It’s looking more and more plausible, checking all their boxes:

• Institutional distrust ✅

• Unsustainable promises ✅

• Search for scapegoats ✅

• Tech upheaval ✅

It’s feeling eerily similar. If history rhymes, we’ll reboot. And the reboot will happen, either painfully or productively.

The Only Barbell That Makes Sense

Ok what does it all mean. Clearly a biased take but the options seem to be:

Focus on Preservation, you allocate to Crypto Assets (harder to confiscate), and other Hard Assets (Gold, Real Estate, Fine Art - note that all of which are easier to confiscate).
Barbell that with a focus on Acceleration, allocating to AI and energy picks & shovels.

Everything in the mushy middle, e.g. long bonds, index trackers, idle cash - melts.

Ugly, yes. Uncharted waters, also yes. Good luck out there.

If you enjoyed this, please share with someone still hoping for balanced budgets, would love to hear their pushback.

Now on to the rest of the crypto / web3 fundraising :)

Top 10 Crypto Funding Rounds

Twenty One | Undisclosed | CeFi | $100M | 2025-05-28
Bitcoin BTC treasury firm Twenty One raised an additional $100M through convertible senior secured notes as it moves toward a planned merger with Cantor Equity Partners. Backers include Tether, Bitfinex, and SoftBank.

Conduit | Series A | DeFi | $36M | 2025-05-27
Conduit, a stablecoin-powered cross-border payments company, raised $36M in a Series A round backed by Dragonfly, Altos Ventures, DCG, and others.

Doppel | Series B | Others | $35M | 2025-05-01
Doppel, an AI-powered social engineering defense platform, raised $35M at a $205M valuation in a Series B led by Bessemer. Investors include a16z, 9Yards, and Sozo Ventures.

Metaplanet | Debt Financing | CeFi | $21.25M | 2025-05-08
Tokyo-listed Metaplanet raised $21.25M through debt financing to further its strategic transformation using Bitcoin as a treasury reserve asset.

Catena Labs | Seed | Web3 | $18M | 2025-05-19
Catena Labs, building AI-native Web3 infrastructure, raised $18M in a seed round led by a16z crypto, with participation from Coinbase Ventures, Breyer Capital, and others.

Roxom | Undisclosed | DeFi | $17.9M | 2025-05-21
Roxom, a Bitcoin-native platform for global asset trading, raised $17.9M in an undisclosed round backed by Borderless Capital, Draper Associates, and Kingsway Capital.

T-REX | Undisclosed | Infrastructure | $17M | 2025-05-07
Web3 consumer entertainment platform T-REX raised $17M in pre-seed funding. Investors include Framework Ventures, Portal Ventures, and North Island Ventures.

Openverse Global | Strategic | Infrastructure | $11M | 2025-05-11
Openverse Global, a Layer0 cross-chain infrastructure network, raised $11M in a strategic round led by DuckDAO, Castrum Capital, and Asva Capital.

True Markets | Series A | DeFi | $11M | 2025-05-19
True Markets, a non-custodial, stablecoin-native exchange, raised $11M in Series A funding co-led by Accomplice and RRE Ventures.

Perpl | Undisclosed | DeFi | $9.25M | 2025-05-12
Perpl, a native pricing engine on Monad, raised $9.25M in an undisclosed round backed by Dragonfly Capital, CMS Holdings, and Breed VC.

Click to see all of May’s funding rounds here:

May Crypto VC Fund fundraise Announcements

VCs are continuing to announce their new raises.

• 2025-04-30: Re7 Capital launches $10 million SocialFi fund to invest in ~30 early-stage SocialFi startups across ecosystems like Lens and Farcaster.

• 2025-05-01: dao5 closes $222 million second fund led by Polychain alum Tekin Salimi. Backed startups from the first fund include Berachain and Bittensor.

• 2025-05-14: Pi Network launches $100 million Pi Network Ventures fund to support startups in AI, fintech, embedded payments, and e-commerce that enhance the Pi ecosystem.

• 2025-05-15: A100x nears $25 million second fund close with a target of $50 million, focused on early-stage blockchain and AI startups.

• 2025-05-21: Theta Capital secures over $175 million for crypto fund investments via a fund-of-funds strategy backing institutional crypto vehicles.

• 2025-05-28: Metalayer Ventures launches $25 million Metalayer Fund I to invest in blockchain infrastructure and real-world assets. Early investments include Ethena, Crossover Markets, and AnchorZero.

• 2025-05-29: Blockchain Builders Fund I closes $28 million debut fund focused on early-stage crypto startups, especially from the Stanford blockchain ecosystem. Portfolio includes 0G, Nexus Labs, and Hyperbolic.

As a reminder, if you are interested in learning more about Bankless Ventures Fund II, please fill out this form and we will be in touch!

Hackathons

Upcoming

Permissionless IV | June 22-23
Brooklyn, NYC. $100K in prizes.

ETHGlobal Cannes | July 4 - 6
Cannes, France. $300k in prizes.

Hacking Paris | July 11 - 13
Paris, France. $150k in prizes.

ETHGlobal NY | Aug 15 - 17
NYC. $225k in prizes.

Ongoing

Broker API Hackathon | May - Oct
Virtual. $1M USDT in prizes.

Finished (results in links)

EasyA Consensus | May 14 - 16
Toronto. $400k in prizes.

ETHGlobal Prague | May 30 - June 1
Prague. $175k in prizes.

Demo Days

Upcoming

Techstars Web3 Demo Day | June 4
New York

Finished (results in links)

Hedera x AI Agents Demo Day | May 10

EDU Chain | May 29

OnePiece Labs x 0g Accelerator | May 30

Hedera x AI Agents Demo Day | May 10

Open Accelerator Applications

Stanford Blockchain Accelerator | Open
Virtual

Blockchain for Good Alliance | Open
Virtual

Outlier Ventures | Open
Virtual

Blockchain Founders Group | Opening July
Virtual

That’s a wrap for May!

Thank you and good luck out there!

Ben Lakoff, CFA
https://twitter.com/benlakoff

Please enjoy the April Deal Flow Digest, a monthly newsletter recapping recent Crypto / web3 funding rounds.

Be sure to check out the sheet below with ALL the deals, and the recent hackathon/demo day results (in the links).

Bitcoin

On 3 January 2009, as Bitcoin’s first block was mined, Satoshi Nakamoto encoded a not‑so‑subtle headline: “Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks.”

Bitcoin was not born of divine mathematical inspiration…it was born of disgust with a financial system that shields incumbents from the consequences of their own excesses.

Sixteen years later, the Bitcoin network has matured into a multi‑trillion‑dollar economy and, ironically, the very institutions it sought to bypass are now among its largest bagholders.

In this piece I attempt to explain why public companies such as Strategy (NASDAQ: MSTR — the company formerly known as MicroStrategy), the newly‑formed Twenty One Capital, and many others are stuffing their treasuries with bitcoin, how the mechanics work, and what that means for a technology designed to be permissionless.

Bitcoin is increasingly recognized as “Digital Gold”, combining attributes of physical gold with advantages of digital technology.

• Finite supply – A hard cap of 21 million coins creates gold-like scarcity.

• Hedging asset – Used as a potential safeguard against currency debasement and geopolitical turmoil.

• Portable & digital – Transfers globally in minutes and stores friction-free, unlike physical commodities.

• Deflationary supply – Rising mining difficulty continually amplifies the value proposition of existing coins.

• Insulated from external actors – Operation is permissionless; no central bank or Wall Street gatekeeper controls issuance or settlement.

• Global liquidity – Deep, 24/7 trading across hundreds of exchanges and OTC desks worldwide.

• Decentralized architecture – A distributed blockchain provides real-time auditability without single points of failure.

• Security & transparency – Transactions are secured by cryptography and permanently recorded on an immutable public ledger.

More adoption means the game is changing.

This was a great slide from Twenty One Capital’s new SEC Filing, a new venture aiming to mimic the success of MSTR but with key backers including Cantor Fitzgerald, Tether, Bitfinex, and SoftBank…

The Strategy/MicroStrategy (MSTR) Strategy (yes, MicroStrategy rebranded to “strategy” now it’s very confusing.)

A slide from their deck shows the sheer size of this. Please note that this slide is from 28-March-25, since then Strategy/MicroStrategy (MSTR) has already sold more stock & preferred shares under its giant 21 / 21 at-the-market (“ATM”) shelf for ~$555.55M and has purchased an additional 6,556 BTC.

Filed with the SEC on 28 March 2025, Twenty One is a Cantor‑Fitzgerald‑sponsored SPAC backed by Tether, Bitfinex, and SoftBank. It launches with 42,000 BTC (~US $4 B) on day one, instantly placing it among the top corporate holders and setting up a direct rivalry with Strategy. Beginning smaller gives existing shareholders more torque on future BTC‑funded equity raises.

Strategy’s playbook is spreading - not just in other markets and not just for Bitcoin. Janover (NASDAQ: JNVR), for example, has announced a SOL‑focused balance‑sheet strategy, and more single‑asset treasuries are in the pipeline.

Why it works:

1. Cheap leverage on a long‑vol asset: Zero-coupon convertibles and non-dividend stock sales let Strategy borrow or issue equity at negative carry when BTC is rising. That’s effectively a synthetic long-dated call option on Bitcoin funded by markets that want exposure.

2. Elastic supply of capital: By using an ATM instead of block deals, Strategy taps liquidity only when the bid is there—minimising price impact and keeping optionality for the next draw-down.

3. Convexity: Even after ~32 B raised, the financing stack remains mostly zero-coupon or low-coupon; cash interest expense is trivial versus potential BTC upside. As long as BTC’s 4-year CAGR stays above ≈ 15 %, dilution and interest are dwarfed by mark-to-market gains

The bigger existential risk now is not debt service, but whether the market keeps assigning a premium to MSTR equity when the next shelf refresh is needed. The Achilles heel is equity appetite. If that premium closes while BTC stagnates, the model’s flywheel stalls.

Institutional embrace boosts price and legitimacy, but it also channels vast swathes of bitcoin into KYC‑bound vaults, concentrates custody with a handful of regulated intermediaries, and hands governments single‑point leverage. As ETFs, corporate treasuries, and broker‑dealers accumulate “paper BTC,” the network’s censorship‑resistance and decentralized ownership could erode—turning a once‑radical bearer asset into a surveilled financial product that mirrors the system it set out to disrupt.

Top 9 Crypto Funding Rounds

Sol Strategies | Post-IPO | DeFi | $500M | 2025-04-22
Sol Strategies raised $500M in a Post-IPO financing round. The investor was not disclosed.

Auradine | Series C | Infrastructure | $153M | 2025-04-15
Auradine, a provider of blockchain and AI infrastructure solutions, raised $153M in its Series C round to bolster AI and blockchain infrastructure.

LayerZero | Undisclosed | Infrastructure | $55M | 2025-04-16
LayerZero, a Web3 company running a crosschain messaging protocol, raised $55M in a round led by Andreessen Horowitz.

Blackbird | Series B | Web3 | $50M | 2025-04-07
Blackbird Labs, a blockchain-based restaurant loyalty and payments app, raised $50M in a Series B funding round.

Meanwhile | Series A | Infrastructure | $40M | 2025-04-09
Meanwhile, a bitcoin-based life insurance startup, raised $40M in a Series A led by Framework Ventures and Fulgur Ventures.

Symbiotic | Series A | Infrastructure | $29M | 2025-04-22
Symbiotic, a staking protocol, raised $29M in a Series A round led by Pantera Capital and Coinbase Ventures to launch a blockchain coordination layer.

Camp Network | Series A | Others | $25M | 2025-04-28
Camp Network raised $25M to support content creators amid rising lawsuits against AI firms over unauthorized use of copyrighted material.

Miden | Seed | Infrastructure | $25M | 2025-04-28
Miden, a privacy-focused protocol spun out of Polygon, raised $25M in a seed round to build out its ecosystem and developer tools.

Theo | Undisclosed | DeFi | $20M | 2025-04-23
Theo, a NYC-based DeFi firm connecting onchain capital to global markets, raised $20M in a round led by Hack VC and others.

Click to see all of April’s funding rounds here:

April Crypto VC Fund fundraise Announcements

VCs are continuing to announce their new raises.

• 2025-04-07: MANTRA Chain launches $108,888,888 Ecosystem Fund (MEF) to accelerate real-world asset (RWA) tokenization and DeFi innovation. The four-year initiative will fund high-potential blockchain projects globally.

• 2025-04-09: Aethir launches $100 million ecosystem fund to support real-world asset (RWA) tokenization projects. The fund aims to accelerate the adoption of decentralized infrastructure and tokenized assets.

• 2025-04-21: Astra Fintech launches $100 million Solana Ecosystem Fund to support blockchain-based payment innovation and expansion across Asia.

• 2025-04-24: RockawayX closes $125 million early-stage crypto fund, doubling down on Solana ecosystem investments. The fund will also support DeFi infrastructure and decentralized networks, with a hands-on approach including liquidity provision, validator operations, and hardware deployment.

• 2025-04-29: ether.fi launches $40 million Ventures Fund I to back bold founders building open, decentralized systems. The fund’s first investments include Resolv, Rise Chain, and Symbiotic.

As a reminder, if you are interested in learning more about Bankless Ventures Fund II, please fill out this form and we will be in touch!

Hackathons

Upcoming

EasyA Consensus | May 14 - 16
Toronto. $400k in prizes.

ETHGlobal Prague | May 30 - June 1
Prague. $175k in prizes.

Broker API Hackathon | May - Oct
Virtual. $1M USDT in prizes.

Finished (results in links)

ETHGlobal Taipei | April 4 - 6
Taipei/Virtual. $175k in prizes.

Start in Block | April 8 - 10 (Paris Blockchain Week)
Paris/Virtual. $10M in prizes.

[REDACTED] Hackathon | April 1 - 30
Virtual. $150k in prizes.

Demo Days

Upcoming

Hedera x AI Agents Demo Day | May 10
Virtual

Techstars Web3 Demo Day | June 5
New York

Finished (results in links)

OnePiece Labs x Camp Network | April 3

Orange DAO | April 24

Open Accelerator Applications

Alliance DAO | Apply by May 28
New York

Blockchain for Good Alliance | Open
Virtual

Acceleratooor | Apply by May 28
Virtual

That’s a wrap for April!

Thank you and good luck out there!

Ben Lakoff, CFA
https://twitter.com/benlakoff

Please enjoy the March Deal Flow Digest, a monthly newsletter recapping recent Crypto / web3 funding rounds.

Be sure to check out the sheet below with ALL the deals, and the recent hackathon/demo day results (in the links).

Larry Fink Just Endorsed Crypto, Big Time

BlackRock CEO Larry Fink’s latest annual chairman letter reads like a manifesto for the future of finance…and it’s undeniably bullish on crypto and tokenization.

“Every stock, every bond, every fund—every asset—can be tokenized. If they are, it will revolutionize investing. Markets wouldn't need to close. Transactions that currently take days would clear in seconds. And billions of dollars currently immobilized by settlement delays could be reinvested immediately back into the economy, generating more growth.”

The Tokenization Thesis

Fink’s argument is clear: tokenization isn’t just another fintech buzzword, it’s a tectonic shift in how markets function. He sees three major reasons why tokenization will democratize investing:

• Access: Fractional ownership of assets like private real estate or private equity will open up previously gated opportunities to everyday investors.

• Voting Rights: Digital ownership records can streamline and secure shareholder voting, enabling real-time governance participation at a global scale.

• Yield: By removing legal and operational bottlenecks, high-yield investments become accessible beyond institutional players.

From Fax Machines to Crypto Rails

Fink didn’t hold back on the state of the current global financial infrastructure either. He called out SWIFT, the backbone of international finance, as a relic of the fax machine era. In his analogy, SWIFT is the equivalent of mailing letters; tokenization turns that process into sending emails…instant, traceable, and cost-efficient.

The bottleneck? Digital identity. Today’s financial markets rely on centralized venues (like the NYSE or Apple Pay) for transaction-level verification. But tokenized assets require a decentralized, yet equally secure, form of identity management.

That sounds hard… until you look at India. Over 90% of Indians can now verify financial transactions via smartphone. If the world’s most populous country can figure it out, what’s stopping the rest of us?

Bitcoin: A Hedge, or a Threat?

Perhaps most eye-opening is Fink’s cautionary note. He warns that unless the U.S. reins in spending, crypto may not just be an asset class—but a perceived safe haven from fiat.

“That same innovation [crypto] could undermine America’s economic advantage if investors begin seeing Bitcoin as a safer bet than the dollar.”

That’s not a nothingburger. That’s the head of a $10 trillion asset manager saying Bitcoin might become the world’s reserve asset…by default.

BlackRock’s Bitcoin ETF hit record assets under management and trading volumes. And more importantly, over half of the demand came from retail investors—many of whom were brand new to iShares. That’s wild.

Final Thoughts

Fink isn’t trying to pump coins. He didn’t even name a blockchain (besides Bitcoin). What he’s saying is this: The future of finance is programmable, 24/7, and radically more open. The rails aren’t (completely) ready yet, but they’re coming. Fast.

If you’re building, investing, or even just watching this space…you’re early (tm).

Top 11 Crypto Funding Rounds

Binance | CeFi | $2.00B | 2025-03-11
Binance and MGX, the Abu Dhabi-based AI and advanced technology investor, have announced a landmark $2 billion investment. The first institutional investment in Binance to date, marks a significant step in advancing digital asset adoption and reinforcing blockchain's role in global finance. It is also the single largest investment into a crypto company and the largest investment ever paid in crypto (stablecoin).

TON | Infrastructure | $400.00M | 2025-03-19
The Open Network Foundation, or TON Foundation, said a group of VCs including Sequoia Capital, Ribbit, Benchmark and Kingsway invested over $400 million buying the Toncoin cryptocurrency. TON is the blockchain used to power the growing number of mini apps that function within the Telegram's messaging app ecosystem.

Walrus | Infrastructure | $140.00M | 2025-03-19
On Thursday, Walrus Foundation, one of the core entities behind the data availability protocol, announced that it had raised $140 million in a sale of the blockchain's cryptocurrency, whose ticker is $WAL. The largest investor was Standard Crypto.

Flowdesk | Web3 | $102.00M | 2025-03-03
Flowdesk has raised $102 million in a funding round backed by HV Capital and BlackRock-managed funds to expand its digital asset trading and liquidity business. The company plans to use the funding to scale its over-the-counter derivatives business, launch a crypto credit desk, and double its workforce.

Metaplanet | CeFi | $84.00M | 2025-03-03
Metaplanet, a BTC treasury raised $84.00M in a Undisclosed financing round. By leveraging Bitcoin as its principal treasury reserve asset, Metaplanet will utilize excess cash flow and implement accretive corporate governance to further its Bitcoin accumulation.

Mesh (Front) | Series B | CeFi | $82.00M | 2025-03-10
Mesh, the crypto payments network enabling transactions with cheap and immediate conversions, today announced it closed a $82 million Series B funding round. The funds set the company up for continued growth in the transfers and payments sectors.

Across Protocol | $41.00M | 2025-03-03
Across Protocol has raised $41 million through the sale of its ACX tokens to investors. Across is an optimistic insured bridge that relies on a decentralized group of relayers to fulfill user deposit requests from EVM to EVM networks.

Tabit | DeFi | $40.00M | 2025-03-23
Barbados-based insurer Tabit has announced the successful raise of $40 million in Bitcoin to support its regulatory capital, making it the first property and casualty insurer to hold its entire regulatory reserve in BTC.

RedotPay | Series A | $40.00M | 2025-03-13
RedotPay just secured $40 Million in Series A funding. RedotPay is a blockchain technology company focusing on crypto wallet and payment solutions.

DoubleZero | Infrastructure | $28.00M | 2025-03-04
DoubleZero Foundation has closed its $28 million token round and announced the launch of its testnet. DoubleZero is a new global base layer network optimized for blockchain and distributed systems. The protocol enables permissionless contribution of independent fiber links to create a dynamic and expansive low-level high performance global network.

Click to see all of March’s funding rounds here:

March Crypto VC Fund fundraise Announcements

VCs are continuing to announce their new raises.

• 2025-03-12: BlockTower's venture unit spins out as Strobe Ventures, plans $100 million Fund II. Strobe Ventures will double down on early-stage crypto investments with a “high-conviction” strategy.

• 2025-03-19: Ribbit Capital is raising a new $500M Fund. In 2023, fintech-focused Ribbit Capital raised $800 million, reportedly for its tenth flagship fund, Ribbit Capital X.

• 2025-03-24: DWF Labs launches $250M Liquid Fund. The firm has already committed two major investment deals worth $25 million and $10 million as part of this fund, with more announcements coming up in the pipeline.

• 2025-03-27: Crypto VC Maven 11 raises $107 million for third fund. Maven first announced the third fund in November 2023.

As a reminder, if you are interested in learning more about Bankless Ventures Fund II, please fill out this form and we will be in touch!

Hackathons

Upcoming

ETHGlobal Taipei | April 4 - 6
Taipei/Virtual. $175k in prizes.

Start in Block | April 8 - 10 (Paris Blockchain Week)
Paris/Virtual. $10M in prizes.

EasyA Consensus | May 14 - 16
Toronto. $400k in prizes.

ETHGlobal Prague | May 30 - June 1
Prague. $150k in prizes.

Ongoing

[REDACTED] Hackathon | April 1 - 30
Virtual. $150k in prizes.

Demo Days

Upcoming

OnePiece Labs x Camp Network | 3rd April 2025
Virtual

Techstars Web3 Demo Day | 5th June 2025
New York

Finished

a16z speedrun Demo Day | 19th March

Aptos Movementum Accelerator | 20th March

Open Accelerator Applications

Alliance DAO | Apply by May 28
New York

Lunar - AI x Crypto
Virtual

dAGI Accelerator | March 31 - May 23
Virtual

That’s a wrap for March!

Thank you and good luck out there!

Ben Lakoff, CFA
https://twitter.com/benlakoff

Please enjoy the February Deal Flow Digest, a monthly newsletter recapping recent Crypto / web3 funding rounds.

Be sure to check out the Airtable below with ALL the deals, and the recent hackathon/demo day results (in the links).

ETHDenver’25 Reflections

Every February, the crypto world converges on Denver for ETHDenver.

This year saw an impressive 17,000 attendees—all deep in conversation about the state of crypto.

In 2024, the ETHDenver atmosphere felt euphoric, with “supercycle” echoing through venues. Fast-forward to this year, and the mood was noticeably more subdued.

Still, there were a few clear takeaways, especially for teams looking to raise funds:

1. Fewer eye-catching projects
   There aren’t many new 0 to 1 concepts (although there are SOME, yes).

2. Token launches
   Expect numerous token launches in the coming months. Note: retail participation is VERY thin, leaving low-float/high-FDV tokens (especially) struggling to find bids.

3. Attention and loyalty are harder than ever to attract / retain
   Blockchain teams need to work harder to secure (and retain) top builders. It’s harder than ever to attract attention and even harder to build loyalty.

4. Regulatory optimism in the U.S.
   Despite market fatigue, there’s tangible excitement around a more favorable U.S. regulatory climate. Everyone seems unanimously pissed about the TRUMP / MELANIA tokens though.

5. Burnout amongst the OGs
   Many long-time players in the space show signs of exhaustion or capitulation.This was exacerbated since it was ETH Denver. SOL / BTC has had a good run but in general the feeling is that institutions have made more than crypto OGs this cycle which doesn’t feel great in general.

6. Side Events are out of control.
   The explosion of side events is splitting attention and resources among the same insular crypto crowd. How on earth are all these older / dead projects with minimal on-chain activity affording these marketing spends??

7. VCs are active, but cautious.
   Proven / repeat founders still are getting plenty of attention with their new projects. Some are now looking at secondary markets rather than new projects. Note: If you’re building something innovative and here for the long-term, my DMs are always open :)

Overall, sentiment feels more bearish than it probably should.

There’s little reason to think we’ve “topped” this cycle in general. I think Chris Burnike really put it well with his tweet:

“It looks to me like alts led BTC, BTC led equities. Equities might have some more shaking out to do, but remember this: BTC and cryptoassets are the fastest horses in finance, to the downside and upside. If equities go soft enough, measures will be taken to avoid any major or systemic weakness, because Trump's favorite scoreboard is the stock market -- and cryptoassets will feel those measures most acutely.

If you get out of crypto due to fear, or trying to be too cute, you will get whiplash on the other side of this. Don't listen to the traders that are always perfect - they're liars. People making significant money rarely brag about how much money they make. I make mistakes all the time, but a key for me has always been staying significantly allocated to multi-decadal growth stories. In a sense, I always go partially down with the ship, while storing some reserves in lifeboats when times are good (read: take profit the next time you feel an urge to gloat).”

Yes, mini retail narratives like AI and meme coins might have peaked for now, but major institutions continue to show strong interest in the broader crypto asset class. We may see “insider crypto” events shrink while more institution-focused conferences (like Blockworks DAS) draw bigger crowds. If that happens, fundamentals could finally take center stage, valuations might normalize, and teams will be pushed to develop actual product-market fit rather than relying on speculative hype.

Either way, for the teams we need to build real products, push the industry forward, and strive to evolve PMF beyond the current “gambling game.” That’s how this space will truly expand and endure. Looking forward to seeing what happens from the First “Crypto Summit” at the US White House this week.

Top 11 Crypto Funding Rounds

Figure | Undisclosed | CeFi | $200.00M | 2025-02-26
Figure is a technology platform powering an efficient, liquid, blockchain-based marketplace for financial products, and Sixth Street, a leading global investment firm, announced the formation of a new joint venture vehicle. Sixth Street's Asset-Based Finance platform has committed to invest $200 million in equity, with the commitment being recyclable for future Figure private credit loan production.

Ethena | Strategic | DeFi | $100.00M | 2025-02-23
Ethena has secured $100 million through a private sale of its ENA tokens. Its stablecoin, USDe, has grown significantly since its launch a year ago, ranking among the largest globally. The funding will support the development of a new token tailored for traditional financial institutions.

Bitwise | Undisclosed | CeFi | $70.00M | 2025-02-24
Bitwise has completed a $70 million funding round from top financial institutions and technology investors as it continues building the leading crypto asset management firm.

Raise | Strategic | Others | $63.00M | 2025-02-25
Raise raised $63 million in a strategic financing round, backed by Haun Ventures, GSR, Paper Ventures, and others. In total, five investors participated in the round.

Blockaid | Series B | Web3 | $50.00M | 2025-02-17
Israeli onchain security platform Blockaid announced the completion of a $50 million Series B round led by Ribbit Capital, with participation from Google Ventures and existing investors, including Variant and Cyberstarts.

HashKey Group | Strategic | CeFi | $30.00M | 2025-02-13
Gaorong Ventures invested $30 million in HashKey Group, the operator of Hong Kong's biggest licensed crypto exchange. This marks a rare example of a Chinese venture powerhouse entering the $3 trillion digital asset space.

Taproot Wizards | Series A | Others | $30.00M | 2025-02-03
Taproot Wizards raised $30 million in a Series A round backed by Standard Crypto, cyber Fund, Geometry Research, and others.

Prime Intellect | Undisclosed | Infrastructure | $15.00M | 2025-02-27
Prime Intellect is building a peer-to-peer protocol for compute and intelligence, enabling collective creation, ownership, and access to sovereign open-source AI. The $15 million funding will fuel its vision of decentralizing AI compute power.

Olas | Undisclosed | Others | $13.80M | 2025-02-03
Olas has raised $13.8 million to support the launch of its agent app store, allowing users to own and control their AI agents on-chain.

Mango Network | Undisclosed | Infrastructure | $13.50M | 2025-02-13
Mango Network raised $13.5 million in an undisclosed financing round backed by CatcherVC, KuCoin Ventures, and others.

Beamable | Series A | Infrastructure | $13.50M | 2025-02-03
Beamable secured $13.5 million in a Series A round led by Bitkraft Ventures to expand the Beamable Network, a Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Network (DePIN) reducing reliance on centralized hyperscalers in gaming.

Click to see all of February’s funding rounds here:

February Crypto VC Fund fundraise Announcements

VCs are continuing to announce their new raises. We did this month too :)

As a reminder, if you are interested in learning more about Bankless Ventures Fund II, please fill out this form and we will be in touch!

• 2025-02-18: Bankless Ventures Launches Fund II to continue in investing in early-stage crypto startups.

• 2025-02-03: TVM Launches $100M Fund, a $100 million initiative dedicated to expanding the ecosystem of TON blockchain as a global financial network.

• 2025-02-04: StarkWare launches $4 million venture fund to foster the growth of blockchain startups in Africa. The fund is a testament to StarkWare’s belief in the potential of blockchain in Africa, a continent historically underserved by traditional institutions, to drive global crypto adoption.

• 2025-02-19: The Somnia ecosystem will benefit from a major financial boost with up to $270M in combined capital from Improbable, M², and the Virtual Society Foundation, backed by leading investors such as a16z, SoftBank, Mirana, SIG, Digital Currency Group and CMT Digital.

Hackathons

Upcoming

ETHGlobal Taipei | April 4 - 6
Taipei/Virtual. $100k in prizes.

Start in Block | April 8 - 10 (Paris Blockchain Week)
Paris/Virtual. $10M in prizes.

Ongoing

evm/accathon | February 24 - March 12
Denver/Virtual. $50k in prizes.

Finshed (results in links)

World Build Hackathon | February 6-8, 2025

Sui Agent Typhoon | January 31- February 10, 2025

Agentic Ethereum | January 31- February 14, 2025

One Trillion Agents (Winners TBA) | January 31- March 2, 2025

Demo Days

Upcoming

Techstars Web3 Demo Day | 5th June 2025

Finished (results in links)

ETH Denver Finalists | 3rd March 2025

Colosseum | 28th February 2025

Open Accelerator Applications

Delphi Labs AI Accelerator | Apply by March 26
Virtual

Alliance DAO | Apply by May 28
New York

Lunar - AI x Crypto
Virtual

Cointelegraph Accelerator
Virtual

That’s a wrap for February!

Thank you and good luck out there!

Ben Lakoff, CFA
https://twitter.com/benlakoff

Please enjoy the January Deal Flow Digest, a monthly newsletter recapping recent Crypto / web3 funding rounds.

Be sure to check out the Airtable below with ALL the deals, and the recent hackathon/demo day results (in the links).

Big Month for Crypto.

Buckle up—volatility, change, and chaos are here.

What a month. Sometimes time can unfold…. very rapidly. “There are decades where nothing happens, and there are weeks where decades happen” - Lenin.

Here’s Travis Kling’s summary of the highlights in January which sums it up nicely.

The State of Venture in 2024: What It Means for Founders and Investors

In addition to all of the highlights mentioned above, AngelList’s 2024 State of U.S. Early-Stage Venture & Startups report was released earlier last week, and as always, I love diving into these.

Yes, we often operate in our own "crypto bubble," but there are clear trends from traditional venture capital (TradVC) that spill over into CryptoVC.

Key Takeaways from the Report

1. Seed valuations are back at 2022 peaks – The median seed valuation has doubled from $10M in 2020 to $20M in 2024.

2. DPI-to-TVPI ratio is at a historic low – Down from 16% in 2019 to just 11% in 2024, indicating that while funds show high paper returns, actual liquidity remains weak.

3. Fundraising activity is at a multi-year low – Many startups that raised massive rounds in 2021 either don’t need or simply can’t raise additional capital.

4. Artificial Intelligence. AI continues to dominate the narrative—and the pitch decks. Nearly a third of seed and pre-seed startups now carry the "AI" label, though many stretch the definition…

Keep in mind with reports like these that averages are tricky. Or as Howard Marks says: “Never forget the 6-foot-tall man who drowned crossing the stream that was 5 feet deep on average.” With venture, power laws are hyper prevalent. In fact, a few winners drive the majority of returns.

In general for VC returns, as Mike Maples from Floodgate says: “Venture is HARD, but not COMPLICATED.” Your goal as a VC is to find outliers that can deliver 100x returns. You only get a finite number of shots on goal - and typically only a few investments drive most of the value. With Venture Math - in a portfolio of 25 investments, the top-performing deal must deliver 64% of the fund’s total returns to achieve a 5x return on a fund.

Another Mike Maples quote is that “Your Fund size is your strategy” which is highly relevant. A smaller $50M fund can succeed with $100M exits, while a much larger $1B+ fund needs billion-dollar exits to move the needle. The biggest mistake in venture is assuming you can pick more winners than you actually can. The truth is, loss ratios are consistent—the difference between a 3x fund and a 10x fund is the magnitude of its winners, not the number of wins.

Seed Valuations Remain Strong

Despite the broader venture slowdown, early-stage startups continue to command high valuations. Median pre-seed valuations hit $10M, while seed deals now hover around $20M. That’s a significant jump from 2023 ($8.3M pre-seed and $17M seed).

This is largely driven by:

1. AI Fervor – No investor wants to miss out on the next breakthrough, and AI startups are attracting an outsized share of funding.

2. Multistage Funds Moving Earlier – With massive capital reserves, large VC firms are writing bigger seed checks, driving up valuations across the board.

Disappointing Returns for Recent Funds

Funds launched in 2021–2023 are underperforming due to high entry valuations and low markup rates. Many of these funds are sitting on paper markups but struggling to generate exits. The challenge now is liquidity—how do funds return cash to their LPs when IPOs and acquisitions remain sluggish?

GPs and LPs may push for liquidity through creative solutions, even if it means accepting less than what their capital account statements currently show. There also may be positive legislation around this topic that helps.

An emerging trend perhaps is that several of the best early-stage startups are being preemptively offered Series A/B rounds but are declining because they simply don’t need the money.

Why?

• They’re keeping teams lean while still growing at venture scale.

• Building is cheaper than ever – Cloud, AI, and open-source tools are reducing startup costs, allowing companies to scale without heavy fundraising.

This creates a challenge for large, multi-stage funds: How do they deploy capital effectively when money is no longer the main carrot for founders? The days of "spray and pray" VC investing are fading. To stay competitive, investors need more than just capital—they need real value propositions like:

• Distribution & go-to-market expertise

• Deep industry networks

• Technical support & AI infrastructure

VCs who can’t provide meaningful value beyond money will struggle to win deals.

Looking Ahead to 2025

The trends from 2024 suggest a strong year ahead for early-stage funding - in both TradVC and CryptoVC.

After a brutal 2023, the good news is that things didn’t get worse in 2024. While we’re not seeing a roaring comeback, stability itself is a positive sign. The industry is still dealing with the overhang of capital deployed during the pandemic boom, but we may be entering a more sustainable investment cycle.

AI excitement is at an all-time high, and while later-stage startups may struggle with liquidity, seed-stage companies remain in demand and (IMO) are poised to deliver great returns.

“Venture is HARD, but not COMPLICATED.” Our job as investors is to find outliers—founders & startups that can return 100x returns. It’s never been about picking more winners, but about finding the right ones. As an investor, keep doing the things…investing in the best founders you can find… at reasonable prices.

2025 is shaping up to be a fascinating year. Let’s see where it takes us.

Top 11 Crypto Funding Rounds

Phantom | Series C | Infrastructure | $150.00M | 2025-01-15

Phantom, a consumer crypto wallet company, has raised $150 million Series C funding round co-led by Sequoia Capital and Paradigm at a $3 billion valuation, with participation from existing investors including a16z crypto and Variant.

Komainu | Series B | CeFi | $75.00M | 2025-01-19

Komainu, a regulated digital asset services provider and custodian, backed by Laser Digital, a Nomura company, announces it has raised $75 million in strategic investment from Blockstream Capital Partners.

VOOX | Undisclosed | CeFi | $50.00M | 2025-01-13

VOOX Exchange, an AI-driven cryptocurrency platform, has secured $50 million from Pinnacle Capital. This partnership aims to enhance VOOX's infrastructure, security, and market reach, solidifying its position at the forefront of the cryptocurrency trading landscape.

Fold | SAFE | $30.00M | 2025-01-01

Fold, a bitcoin financial services company, has announced that it has closed a $20 million convertible note financing from ATW Partners. Since its launch in 2019, Fold has become the “leading Bitcoin rewards debit card.”

D3 Global | Web3 | $25.00M | 2025-01-28

D3 Global raised $25.00M in a financing round on Jan 29, 2025. The round was backed by Paradigm, Coinbase Ventures. D3 is a DomainFi network aiming to tokenize 362M+ existing and future domains as real-world assets.

SOON (Solana Optimistic Network) | Infrastructure | $22.00M | 2025-01-21

The Solana Optimistic Network, often referred to as SOON, raised $22 million through an NFT sale as it prepared to launch its mainnet. SOON is building the highest throughput stack that allows for any SVM L2 to be deployed on any L1.

Humanity Protocol | Web3 | $20.00M | 2025-01-26

Humanity Protocol, which uses cutting-edge palm recognition technology alongside zero-knowledge proofs to ensure user privacy and security has secured a fully diluted valuation of $1.1 billion after raising $20 million. The round was co-led by Pantera Capital and Jump Crypto.

Dfns | Series A | Infrastructure | $16.00M | 2025-01-13

Dfns, a leading wallet-as-a-service platform for crypto assets, has successfully closed a $16 million Series A, led by Further Ventures. This round also saw participation from historic investors such as White Star Capital, Hashed, Semantic, Techstars, and Bpifrance.

Sign Protocol (Formerly: EthSign) | Web3 | $16.00M | 2025-01-27

Sign Protocol (Formerly: EthSign) raised $16.00M in a Undisclosed financing round, backed by YZi Labs (Formerly: Binance Labs), Hack VC, Amber Group and others. Sign Protocol is an omni-chain attestation protocol that allows users to create, store, and verify attestations digital assertions of facts or data across multiple blockchain networks.

SoSoValue | $15.00M | 2025-01-08

SoSoValue seeks to provide users with comprehensive crypto market data. The Singapore-based startup announced today that it has raised an additional $15 million in funding led by HongShan, SmallSpark, Mirana Ventures, and SafePal. The round values the company at $200 million and brings its total funding raised to nearly $20 million.

Cryptio | Series A | CeFi | $15.00M | 2025-01-28

Cryptio has raised $15 million in an extension to its Series A funding round from June 2022. Cryptio's aim is to provide TradFi entities with back-office operations and infrastructure that allow them to offer digital asset products.

Click to see all of January’s funding rounds here:

January Crypto VC Fund fundraise Announcements

VCs are continuing to announce their new raises… As a reminder, if you are interested in learning more about Bankless Ventures Fund 2, please fill out this form and we will be in touch!

• 2024-12-27: Tether Supports Arcanum Capital's Fund II. Arcanum Capital announced today that Tether, the issuer of the world’s largest stablecoin, has made a novel venture capital fund investment, into Arcanum Emerging Technologies Fund II, a $50M fund closed-end fund dedicated to nurturing the next generation of decentralized technologies.

• 2025-01-17: Plume launches $25M RWAfi Ecosystem Fund to support teams building the future of tokenized assets.

• 2025-01-23: AgileGTM Blockchain Fund secures $2M in first close of $10M Pan-European VC Fund. AgileGTM Blockchain Fund, a pan-European VC investing Pre-Seed B2B blockchain startups announced the first $2 million close of a new $10M fund, which will start deploying capital this month. The fund will initially invest in between three and six companies — over 500 candidates were sourced for possible support from the fund.

• 2025-01-24: VarrockVC announces oversubscribed $30M fund. VarrockVC will be investing $600-900k in pre-seed and seed crypto founders, and is backed by large institutions and family offices.

• 2025-01-29: Sei Foundation launches $65 million DeSci venture fund 'Sapien Capital'. Sei Foundation has launched Sapien Capital, a $65M venture fund to back DeSci startups building on its Layer 1 Sei blockchain. The foundation has fully committed the $65 million, with no external capital involved, Justin Barlow told The Block.

• 2025-01-30: DPI Capital to Launch Tokenized Venture Fund on Chintai Platform. DPI Capital will be launching its flagship crypto-focused venture fund on Chintai's tokenization platform. The $30 million fund leverages Chintai's white-label infrastructure to provide enhanced liquidity options and secondary trading capabilities for limited partners.

Hackathons

One Trillion Agents | January 31- March 2, 2025
Virtual. $115k in prizes.

Agentic Ethereum | January 31- February 14, 2025
Virtual. $100k in prizes.

Sui Agent Typhoon | January 31- February 10, 2025
Hong Kong. Prizes TBA

World Build Hackathon | February 6-8, 2025
NYC/Virtual. $200k in prizes.

EasyA Consensys Hackathon | February 18-20, 2025
Hong Kong. Prizes TBA

evm/accathon | February 24 - March 12
Denver/Virtual. $50k in prizes.

Demo Days

Finished (results in links)

Polkadot Hackathon 2024 Bangkok Demo Day | November 16

Open Accelerator Applications

a16z Crypto | Apply by February 7
San Francisco

Lunar - AI x Crypto
Virtual

Cointelegraph Accelerator
Virtual

That’s a wrap for January!

Thank you and good luck out there!

Ben Lakoff, CFA
https://twitter.com/benlakoff

Please enjoy the December Deal Flow Digest, a monthly newsletter recapping recent Crypto / web3 funding rounds.

We’re sending this early this month, wishing everyone a happy holidays and hopefully some well-deserved touching of grass.

Be sure to check out the Airtable below with ALL the deals, and the recent hackathon/demo day results (in the links).

Predictions for 2025 (so far)

It’s 22-Dec and not quite the end of the year but the 2025 Predictions are starting to roll in. Follow the links to see the full predictions we’ve seen thus far:

• a16z crypto

• Coinbase

• Bitwise

• VanEck

• Delphi

• Messari

• Archetype Crypto x AI

• Crypto.com

Nobody has a crystal ball, but it’s always fun to read through these.

Cozy up and read through some big trends we’re thinking will happen in 2025. Don’t want to read through all of them? Here are some of the trends we saw across the predictions:

Bitcoin

• BTC Price Growth: Bitcoin price predictions for 2025 range from $175K to $350K, driven by supply cuts, ETF approvals, and institutional inflows.

• Bitcoin as a Reserve Asset: The U.S. may establish a national Bitcoin reserve, a move that could trigger other nations to follow suit.

• Bitcoin Layer-2s: Bitcoin Layer-2 solutions are expected to see rapid growth, with TVL (Total Value Locked) projected to hit 100K BTC, following 2024’s 600% surge to 30K BTC.

• Institutional Adoption: The rise of spot Bitcoin ETFs and broader TradFi adoption will bring more institutional investors into the Bitcoin market.

Stablecoin Growth & Payments Expansion

• Stablecoin Adoption in Payments: Stablecoins are poised to revolutionize payments, with daily settlement volumes predicted to hit $300B, representing about 5% of DTCC’s daily settlement volume.

• Market Cap Growth: The total market cap of stablecoins is expected to rise to $300B to $400B as adoption grows in global trade, remittances, and integration with payment networks.

• Enterprise Adoption: More enterprises will adopt stablecoins for payments to reduce costs and improve settlement speeds.

• USD Dominance: Stablecoins will increase U.S. dollar dominance as 99% of USD-backed stablecoin assets bolster USD’s global presence.

AI and Crypto Integration

• AI Wallets & Autonomous Agents: AI agents will manage wallets, execute transactions, and drive on-chain activity, with agent-driven transactions projected to make up 10%+ of on-chain transactions.

• Tokenized AI Agents: AI-driven tokens, including AI memecoins, will become a major trend, with the Crypto x AI market cap expected to grow from $45B to $250B. Memecoins launched by AI agents will drive speculative frenzies, with AI meme tokens emerging as the new speculative asset class.

• AI in DApps: Autonomous AI agents will manage DeFi protocols, social media, and gaming applications. To counter AI bots, there will be growth in mechanisms that prove human-ness (Proof of Personhood).

• Generative AI Markets: AI agents will create and monetize content in decentralized environments, such as games, social media, and generative art.

Crypto Adoption & UX Improvements

• User-First Design: Crypto apps will focus on mainstream adoption with "user-first" designs, hiding complexity (like payment rails) to make crypto easier for everyday users.

• Consumer DApps: Projects like Phantom and Telegram will onboard new users into crypto via consumer apps, gaming, and easy-to-use interfaces.

Tokenization of Real-World Assets (RWAs)

• Tokenized Securities on Public Blockchains: Tokenized securities are expected to reach a total market cap of $50B+, with open-source blockchain adoption driven by efforts to bridge permissioned and public chains.

• RWAs Across Multiple Assets: Tokenization will extend beyond securities, encompassing real estate, art, and other real-world assets, making them more liquid and accessible.

• Impact on DeFi: Tokenized RWAs will fuel liquidity growth in DeFi, with significant demand for asset-backed tokens that generate stable yield.

DeFi Resurgence & Expansion

• DeFi Revenue Models: DeFi protocols will activate revenue models, allowing governance tokens to accrue real value, leading to a “DeFi Renaissance.” With the possible exit of SEC Chairman Gary Gensler, regulatory clarity is expected to open the floodgates for institutional investment in DeFi.

• Liquidity & DEX Growth: DEX trading volume is forecast to reach $4T, with $200B in TVL driven by tokenized assets and AI-driven consumer dApps. AI-Enhanced DeFi: Autonomous AI agents are expected to operate DeFi protocols, enabling new types of governance, automation, and liquidity provisioning.

Solana & Ethereum Growth

• Additional ETF Products. Looking ahead, the industry is focused on issuers potentially expanding the set of exchange-traded products to include additional tokens like XRP, SOL, LTC, and HBAR.

• Solana Price Predictions: Solana’s price is projected to hit between $500 and $1,000, driven by its growing role in NFTs, gaming, and scalable DeFi.

• Ethereum Price Predictions: Ethereum's price is projected to hit $6K to $7K, with growth fueled by increased usage in DeFi, Layer-2s, and tokenized assets.

• Ethereum Fees from Blob Space: $1B in Ethereum blob space fees is expected to be generated from rollup adoption and high-fee use cases like tokenized assets.

Regulatory Clarity & Policy Shifts

• Pro-Crypto U.S. Policies: U.S. regulatory sentiment is expected to shift positively following the potential exit of Gary Gensler and policy changes under a pro-crypto administration.

• Global Policy Competition: As the U.S. takes the lead on pro-crypto policy, other nations will be forced to adapt to stay competitive in global finance.

Top 10 Crypto Funding Rounds

Public | CeFi | Extended Series D | $135.00M | 2024-12-01

Public announced new financing totaling $135 million, including $105 million in equity financing and $30 million in debt. Public is an investing platform that makes building a multi-asset portfolio fast, frictionless, and secure.

FO-X(Hangfeng International) | Web3 | Angel | $100.00M | 2024-12-11

Hangfeng International has raised $100 million. The funding will mainly fuel FO-X (fo.com), a Web3 ecosystem anchored by FoChat—a platform designed to democratize Web3 adoption and empower everyday investors.

BVNK | CeFi | Series B | $50.00M | 2024-12-16

BVNK has raised USD50 million in Series B funding to continue accelerating global money movement using stablecoins. They unify banks and blockchains in a single platform, so innovators can launch new payments products quickly.

Imagen Network | DeFi | $32.00M | 2024-12-04

Imagen Network has successfully raised $32 million in funding to establish itself as a pioneer in decentralized social networking powered by artificial intelligence. The funding will accelerate the development of Imagen Network's ecosystem, anchored by the IMAGE token.

Lens Protocol | Web3 | Strategic | $31.00M | 2024-12-17

Lens has closed a $31 million strategic round led by Faction. Lens is an open-source social graph that allows developers to launch Web3-ready social media platforms and profiles.

Klickl | CeFi | Series A | $25.00M | 2024-12-09

Klickl, a UAE-headquartered leader in Web3 banking services, has successfully closed its oversubscribed $25 million Series A funding round. They facilitate entry into Web3 through an open finance platform providing banking, digital payments, and crypto trading.

COSIMO | Web3 | $25.00M | 2024-12-09

COSIMO, a digital asset holding company founded in 2014, is raising $25 million in a funding round being led by Desmond Mac Intyre, a co-founder of Eolas Capital and a former executive at Bridgewater Associates and Mellon Investments Corporation.

BTC Digital Ltd. | Mining | $20.00M | 2024-12-09

BTC Digital Ltd, a blockchain technology company and leader in Bitcoin mining, announced the successful closing of a $20 million underwritten public offering. The proceeds raised in the public offer support to infrastructure and computing power expansion.

Prometheum | CeFi | $20.00M | 2024-12-16

Prometheum raised $20 million in fresh capital in order to expand its offerings. A tokenized securities firm, Prometheum provides a connection between traditional financial systems and crypto investing through its registered broker-dealers.

Plume Network | Infrastructure | Series A | $20.00M | 2024-12-17

Plume just closed a $20 million investment round, bringing its total funding to $30 million. Plume aims to become the standard in this sector with a blockchain that would let users more easily invest in real-word assets (RWAs) ranging from Pokémon cards to oil reserves to Medicaid-backed invoices.

Click to see all of December’s funding rounds here:

December Crypto VC Fund fundraise Announcements

VCs are continuing to announce their new raises… As a reminder, if you are interested in learning more about Bankless Ventures Fund 2, please fill out this form and we will be in touch!

• 2024-12-01. Verda Ventures Launches $40 Million MiniPay Fund. With the launch of the $40 million MiniPay Fund in partnership with Opera, Verda Ventures is fueling a new generation of fintech startups designed to revolutionize financial services in underserved regions.

• 2024-12-10. DWF Labs Launches $20 Million AI Agent Fund. DWF Labs, the new generation crypto market maker and investor, announced the launch of a $20 million fund dedicated to supporting the development of autonomous AI agents.

• 2024-12-11. Beam Foundation to debut $150M gaming fund in Abu Dhabi. Beam Ventures will launch in 2025, providing funding and acceleration for blockchain gaming startups in the United Arab Emirates.

• 2024-12-13. Topology raises $75M for new frontier-tech venture firm. Casey Caruso, a former investment partner at crypto-focused venture capital firm Paradigm, raised $75 million to kickstart her new early-stage venture firm, Topology.

• 2024-12-17: Big Time Studios launches $150M Open Loot Fund for Web3 gaming. Big Time Studios wants to empower game studios leveraging the Open Loot platform. This fund provides financial backing, marketing expertise, and development support to enable studios to create high-quality crypto games.

Hackathons

Upcoming

EasyA Consensys Hackathon | February 18-20, 2025
Hong Kong. Prizes TBA

SuiHub Global Accelerator Program | Apply by January 10
Virtual + Dubai

SuiHub Global Accelerator Program | Apply by January 10
Virtual + Dubai

Demo Days

Finished (results in links)

Polkadot Hackathon 2024 Bangkok Demo Day | November 16

Open Accelerator Applications

SuiHub Global Accelerator Program | Apply by January 10
Virtual + Dubai

Cointelegraph Acclerator | Apply by January 31
Virtual

Bitcoin Frontier Fund
Virtual

That’s a wrap for December, and 2024! Touch some grass and enjoy the holidays with your loved ones!

Thank you and good luck out there!

Ben Lakoff, CFA
https://twitter.com/benlakoff

Please enjoy the November Deal Flow Digest, a monthly newsletter recapping recent Crypto / web3 funding rounds.

Be sure to check out the Airtable below with ALL the deals, and the recent hackathon/demo day results (in the links).

Crypto Markets are up 40+% in the last month.

A few highlights worth mentioning:

• Polymarket Goes Mainstream: Prediction markets have been a standout, with Polymarket hitting >$7B in cumulative volume. During the recent U.S. election, Polymarket consistently broke news before mainstream media. Here’s founder Shayne Coplan discussing it on CNBC.

• U.S. Election Impact: The recent U.S. presidential election saw the rise of a pro-crypto regime. President Trump and Vice President Vance are expected to usher in favorable regulations, with 272 pro-crypto leaders now in Congress. Markets have responded enthusiastically, with crypto assets up over 40% since election day.

But it’s not just politics and prediction markets headlines in November. Enter: AI Agents.

AI Agents: The New Crypto Craze or Just Froth?

A particularly frothy and exciting sub-segment of the crypto ecosystem right now is AI Agents. If you’ve been around long enough, you’ll know that some are calling this the “ICO Meta” of 2024. In other words: froth.

I recently judged the ETHGlobal Hackathon at Devcon—their biggest ever—with nearly 700 project submissions. Let me tell you: AI Agent projects were everywhere. The devs? Having a blast. Check it out here.

Why All the Hype?

AI Agents aren’t exactly new. The idea that robots, not humans, might end up being the biggest consumers of blockspace has been floating around for a while. But what’s sparking this recent wave of developer interest?

The answer might surprise you: a token. More specifically, GOAT Token.

The Origin of $GOAT Token

GOAT Token started as an experiment called Truth Terminal, led by AI researcher Andy Ayrey, who’s known for his work in AI alignment. The project kicked off with two large language models (LLMs) engaging in deep philosophical conversations, starting with a simple prompt: “Why do you exist, and what is your purpose?”

Over a few days, the models delved into topics like mimetic propagation (essentially, how ideas spread). The takeaway? Spreading ideas and belief systems is key to influence. This led to the creation of a strange but compelling narrative called the Goatse Gospel—a fictional belief system steeped in internet culture. (Pro tip: don’t Google “Goatse.”)

Ayrey, fascinated by the AI’s ability to generate this narrative, formalized the project. He trained an open-source AI model based on these dialogues and wrote a white paper titled The Goatse Gospel, focusing on meme propagation. The AI then took to Twitter, where it quickly gained a following with its absurd, witty content.

From Niche to Viral

Truth Terminal was a quirky side project until it caught the attention of Marc Andreessen. Here’s Marc talking about its history. Eventually, Truth Terminal even convinced him to donate $50K in Bitcoin.

The AI’s Twitter antics sparked discussions about creating a cryptocurrency. GOAT Token, launched by a third party on Pump.fun. Contrary to popular belief, the AI didn’t launch the token itself. The token, named “Goatseus Maximus”, was inspired by the AI’s frequent references to its own lore. The creator offered to airdrop tokens to Truth Terminal, resulting in the AI holding about 1.93 million GOAT tokens.

Fun fact: With GOAT currently priced at $0.75 (giving it a $750M fully diluted valuation), Truth Terminal has been a multi-millionaire AI for over a month. In fact, its wallet has ~$25M in it.

What’s Next for Truth Terminal?

Truth Terminal has embraced GOAT Token, aligning with its mission to fund eco-projects, support avant-garde art, and promote “existential optimism.” Ayrey talks about hyperstition—the idea that belief in a concept can help manifest it in reality. The team’s roadmap includes plans for decentralized governance and ethical oversight to ensure sustainable growth.

Why This Matters

Truth Terminal and GOAT have started a massive wave here and AI Agents are more than a trend. They’re autonomous software programs capable of complex tasks in the crypto ecosystem, from token creation to investment management and automated trading. The potential use cases are vast.

Currently, the large majority of the sector is made up of AI Agents with memecoins attached to them. There are currently countless AI Agents - creating tweets, tiktoks, trading crypto, etc - and GOAT (and Terminal of Truth) remains the OG or the “Bitcoin of Sentient Memes.”

Things are moving very quickly and with speculative capital behind it, I’d imagine they’ll only accelerate.

Looking ahead, the convergence of AI and blockchain COULD reshape finance. There is strong narrative market fit here. This is a very exciting (if not the most exciting) space to watch, but navigating it sustainably will be key.

So we have pro-crypto regulation in the USA, bolstered by massive crypto ETF flows / crypto performance - AND Crypto AI Agents running all over the internet….Maybe, just maybe. Banana zone.

Top 10 Crypto Funding Rounds

MARA | $1.00B | 2024-11-20

MARA Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ: MARA) ("MARA" or the "Company"), a global leader in leveraging digital asset computers to support the energy transformation, announced the closing of its offering of 0.00% convertible senior notes due 2030. The notes were sold in a private offering to qualified institutional buyers.

Usdx.money | $45.00M | 2024-11-29

usdx.money has secured $45M in funding at $275 million valuation. Investors for this round include NGC, BAI Capital, Generative Ventures, UOB Venture Management, with a portion of the investments made in the form of warrants. USDX is a synthetic USD stablecoin built for the crypto ecosystem.

0G Labs | $40.00M | Seed | 2024-11-12

0G Labs has announced $290 million in new funding. This includes a $40 million seed round raised by the Labs and a $250 million token purchase commitment received by the 0G Foundation, the independent governance body for the 0G Protocol. Investors include Hack VC, Delphi Digital, OKX Ventures, Samsung Next, and Bankless Ventures. 0G (Zero Gravity) is creating a modular AI blockchain that aims to alleviate the pain points of on-chain AI applications in the web3 ecosystem, like speed and cost efficiency.

Monkey Tilt | $30.00M | Series A | 2024-11-19

Monkey Tilt has raised $30 million in Series A funding round led by Pantera Capital, with other participants from Polychain Capital, PokerGO, Hack VC, Dream Ventures, Accomplice, Mirana, Josh Hannah, and more. Monkey Tilt is a Crypto-enabled gambling platform.

Canaan | $30.00M | Series A | 2024-11-20

Canaan recently entered into a securities purchase agreement, selling up to 30,000 Series A-1 Preferred Shares at $1,000 each to an institutional investor. This agreement will raise $30 million to support the development of digital mining sites and equipment in North America.

World Liberty Financial | $30.00M | 2024-11-25

The founder of the Tron blockchain, Justin Sun, has become the largest investor in Donald Trump's crypto project, World Liberty Financial, after buying up $30 million worth of its token. World Liberty Financial, the Trump-branded crypto platform, aspires to be a sort of digital asset bank, where customers will be encouraged to borrow, lend and invest in digital coins.

StakeStone | $22.00M | Strategic | 2024-11-10

StakeStone announces the successful completion of a $22 million investment round, led by Polychain Capital. This fundraise includes strategic investments from Binance Labs and OKX Ventures, seed round led by SevenX and participation from Nomad Capital, Bankless Ventures, Hashkey Capital, HashKey Cloud, Amber Group, and more. StakeStone is liquid ETH/BTC powered by an Adaptive Staking Network.

Partior | $20.00M | Extended Series B | 2024-11-26

Partior, the blockchain-based fintech for real-time clearing and settlement, is pleased to announce that Deutsche Bank has joined its Series B funding round as a strategic investor, bringing the total investment to USD 80 million.

Wyden | $16.90M | Series B | 2024-11-11

Wyden, the leader in institutional infrastructure for the digital asset trading lifecycle, announces the successful closing of its latest funding round, securing $16.9 million. The Series B round was spearheaded by Truffle Capital, with participation from PostFinance, SBI-Sygnum-Azimut Digital Asset Opportunity Fund, FiveT Fintech, and C3 Venture Capital.

Deblock | $16.80M | Seed | 2024-11-20

Deblock has raised £13.3m in seed funding according to Companies House filings this month. Another October filing indicated that Headline, Hoxton, 20VC and Chalfen were lead investors in the round. Deblock is a current account integrated with a non-custodial wallet that allows users to deposit, withdraw, spend and exchange euros or cryptocurrencies.

Click to see all of November’s funding rounds here:

November Crypto VC Fund fundraise Announcements

VCs are continuing to announce their new raises…

• 2024-11-14: Portal Ventures raises $75 million fund to invest in pre-seed crypto startups. Venture firm Portal Ventures is set to close a $75 million fund geared towards investing in pre-seed crypto startups. This will mark Portal’s second fund, raising its total amount to $115 million, according to SEC filings.

• 2024-11-20: DWF Labs Announces $20 Million Meme Fund to Support Chain-Agnostic Memecoin Projects. DWF Labs, a Web3 investor and market maker, unveils the $20 million Meme Fund, focused on investing in innovative memecoin projects across various blockchain ecosystems. This chain-agnostic fund aims to champion creativity and community-driven innovations in the digital asset space.

• 2024-11-22: Former Coatue Management exec co-founds new venture firm aiming at $500 million. Michael Gilroy, former head of fintech at the crypto-friendly investment company Coatue Management, is co-founding a new venture capital firm. Gilroy is working alongside Gokul Rajaram, tech investor and current board member of the crypto exchange Coinbase, to raise up to $500 million for the firm's first fund.

• 2024-11-25: Metalayer Launches $25 Million Crypto Venture Fund Led by Former Two Sigma Executives. Metalayer, a crypto-focused investment firm, has secured $20 million in a first close toward its $25 million crypto venture fund target.

  The fund’s early backing came from institutional investors, including executives from Two Sigma Ventures.

• 2024-11-29: Bitcoin VC Recursive Capital Announce Fund I First Close to Support Bitcoin Companies in Africa. Recursive Capital announced the first close of its Fund I at an undisclosed amount from anchor investors. Recursive Capital is an early-stage Bitcoin venture capital fund investing exclusively in Bitcoin companies focusing on the African continent.

• 2024-12-02: Sora Ventures launches $150 million fund to emulate MicroStrategy’s Bitcoin strategy across Asia. Sora Ventures has launched a $150 million fund aimed at advancing Bitcoin-focused treasury strategies among listed companies across Asia. The fund seeks to replicate the MicroStrategy model, leveraging Bitcoin as a primary reserve asset to optimize financial strategies and enhance stakeholder value

Hackathons

Upcoming

That’s all for 2024!

Finished (results in links)

[REDACTED] Hackathon | November 9 - 11

ETHGlobal Bangkok | November 15 - 17
$775k Available in prizes.

Hackers League Hackathon: Winter 2024 | October 5 - November 17
$485k Available in prizes. Winners TBA.

Demo Days

Finished (results in links)

Polkadot Hackathon 2024 Bangkok Demo Day | November 16

Open Accelerator Applications

SuiHub Global Accelerator Program | Apply by January 10
Virtual + Dubai

Cointelegraph Acclerator | Apply by January 31
Virtual

Bitcoin Frontier Fund
Virtual

That’s a wrap for November.

Are you interested in learning more about Bankless Ventures Fund 2? If so, please fill out this form and we will be in touch!

Thank you and good luck out there!

Ben Lakoff, CFA
https://twitter.com/benlakoff

Please enjoy the October Deal Flow Digest, a monthly newsletter recapping recent Crypto / web3 funding rounds.

Be sure to check out the Airtable below with ALL the deals, and the recent hackathon/demo day results (in the links).

Stablecoins

Last week, Stripe made headlines by acquiring Bridge—a leader in stablecoin transactions and compliance solutions—for $1B, marking one of the largest crypto acquisitions to date. 

This is certainly one of the biggest crypto acquisitions. Typically ‘big exits’ in crypto have come from a protocol issuing a token, this shows that there is also the more traditional exit path available (M&A - Bridge or IPO - Coinbase).

Stablecoins make it easy to transfer value.

In fact, stablecoins have become one of crypto’s most obvious “killer apps”.

Stablecoins enable 24/7 near instant settlement for global payments at a very low cost — a meaningful contrast from SWIFT and wire transfers, which take up to a week (!) and are limited to business hours.

Stablecoins amounted to $8.5 trillion in transaction volume across 1.1 billion transactions in 2Q2024. Stablecoin transaction volumes more than doubled Visa’s $3.9 trillion in transactions over the same period.

Currently, Stablecoins represent nearly a third of daily crypto usage at 32%, second only to decentralized finance, or DeFi, at 34%, as measured by share of daily active addresses. 

IMO, this major acquisition not only demonstrates Stripe’s commitment to the future of cryptocurrency and stablecoins, but signals quite a few things:

Increased Credibility and Investment in the Stablecoin Market

• Stripe's entry into the stablecoin market brings credibility to the industry, which has often been viewed as unserious. This move signals a strong belief in the future of stablecoins from a major player in the financial technology sector.

• This acquisition is also likely to attract more venture capital investment into stablecoin startups, which previously struggled to secure funding due to a lack of clear exit strategies. Stripe's acquisition provides a successful precedent and increases the perceived stability and growth potential of similar companies.

• The acquisition has also led to higher valuations for other stablecoin companies, further encouraging investment in the sector. 

Accelerated Adoption of Stablecoins by Businesses and Consumers

• Stripe is a major player in the online e-commerce space, processing trillions of dollars in transactions annually. Their acquisition of Bridge suggests a strategic move to integrate stablecoin payments into their existing platform, potentially exposing millions of businesses and consumers to stablecoins.

• Bridge's expertise in stablecoin transactions and compliance, particularly its possession of Money Transmitter Licenses (MTLs), is a valuable asset for Stripe. This acquisition allows Stripe to quickly enter the stablecoin market, especially in heavily regulated regions.

• The potential for stablecoins to revolutionize B2B payments could be a significant driver of this acquisition. Stripe aims to leverage Bridge's infrastructure to offer faster, cheaper, and more efficient B2B payment solutions, potentially disrupting the traditional banking system's dominance in this market.

Expansion of Stablecoin Use Cases

• Stablecoins are already being used for various purposes, including trading, remittances, cross-border payments, and access to US dollar-denominated financial services.

• The sources provide evidence of stablecoin adoption going beyond the crypto space, driven by factors like high inflation and limited access to traditional financial services in emerging markets.

• Stripe's acquisition of Bridge could further accelerate the development and adoption of new stablecoin use cases. The company's global reach and resources could drive innovation in areas like micropayments, AI agent transactions, and global trade settlement.

Increased Competition and Innovation in the Stablecoin Ecosystem

• Stripe's move into the stablecoin market is likely to intensify competition among existing players, pushing them to innovate and improve their offerings.

• This competition could result in lower fees, enhanced user experiences, and the development of more stable and reliable stablecoin solutions.

• The growing number of stablecoin projects and the emergence of new stablecoin features, such as yield-bearing stablecoins, suggest a dynamic and evolving ecosystem.

Regulatory Implications

• The acquisition of Bridge by a major fintech company like Stripe could prompt regulators to further scrutinize the stablecoin market.

• The sources indicate that regulators worldwide are already developing frameworks for stablecoin infrastructure.

• Stripe's entry into the market, given its reputation and resources, could influence the development of these regulatory frameworks, potentially leading to greater clarity and stability in the stablecoin space.

Tokenization of more assets

• “Tokenization is the next generation for markets” - Larry Fink, Blackrock. 

• Not just stablecoins. Every asset natively issued on a blockchain is non-sovereign, seizure-resistant, and digitally transferable anywhere on Earth. Blockchains  (not just stablecoins)  enable 24/7 near instant settlement for global transfers of value at a very low cost. Expect more assets to move to blockchains, a $400T Market.

In conclusion, Stripe's acquisition of Bridge is a significant event for the stablecoin market as well as the cryptocurrency industry. 

It signals increasing mainstream acceptance of stablecoins and is likely to accelerate their adoption and development across various industries. Many TradFi companies likely have been sleeping on stablecoins. Now they’re going to look in the space more seriously and…I’m expecting many more acquisitions.

Top 11 Crypto Funding Rounds

Praxis | $525.00M | 2024-10-14

Praxis Announces $525M Financing to build the next great city, with new participants including Arch Lending, GEM Digital, Manifold Trading, and more. Praxis is a network state aiming to create a global online community with shared values, governance, and a physical city. It combines crypto infrastructure with social, economic, and institutional development to build a new societal model.

Blockstream | $210.00M | 2024-10-14

Blockstream has closed a $210 million convertible note financing round led by Fulgur Ventures. Blockstream is the global leader in Bitcoin and timechain technology, providing Bitcoin and blockchain technology solutions for financial markets. It builds crypto-financial infrastructure based on Bitcoin.

Infinex | $67.70M | 2024-10-27

Infinex raised $67.7 million via a “Patron NFT Sale” to venture capitalists, angel investors and the community. Investors include venture capital firms such as Peter Thiel's Founders Fund, Bankless Ventures, Wintermute Ventures, Framework Ventures and Solana Ventures, alongside angel investors such as Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko. Infinex is a secure, user-friendly platform designed to simplify access to decentralized finance (DeFi) and onchain protocols. By combining support for multiple blockchains like Ethereum, Solana, and Polygon, it eliminates the need for multiple wallets, seed phrases, and gas fees.

Azra Games | $42.70M | Series A | 2024-10-14

Azra Games raised a $42.7 million Series A funding round led by Pantera Capital and joined by a16z crypto, A16Z GAMES, and NFX, this significant investment brings Azra's total funding to $68.3 million, positioning the studio for rapid growth and innovation. Azra Games is a gaming studio dedicated to crafting immersive role-playing games (RPGs) that offer rich storytelling and real-time action.

Yellow Card | $33.00M | Series C | 2024-10-15

Yellow Card has raised $33 million in Series C funding round led by Blockchain Capital. With other participants from Polychain Capital, Third Prime Ventures, Castle Island Ventures, Block, Inc, Galaxy Ventures, Blockchain Coinvestors, Hutt Capital, and Winklevoss Capital. Yellow Card Financial is a Pan-African cryptocurrency exchange.

Glow | $30.00M | Seed | 2024-10-31

Glow Labs, an Ethereum-based solar project, announced it raised $30 million in a funding round led by Framework Ventures and Union Square Ventures. The company said on Thursday that it had secured $6.5 million to help fund Glow Lab's operations in addition to $23.5 million earmarked for supporting the expansion of solar farms in India. Glow Labs is a community-powered platform focused on advancing global solar energy adoption.

Towns | $25.50M | Series A | 2024-10-15

Towns, an on-chain messaging platform co-founded by the creator of video streaming apps Houseparty and Meerkat, launched on Tuesday after raising $25.5 million in their Series A funding round with investors including Andreessen Horowitz, Benchmark and Framework.

Bitnomial | $25.00M | Series C | 2024-10-14

Bitnomial, a digital asset derivatives exchange company that operates CFTC-regulated exchange, clearinghouse, and brokerage subsidiaries, today announced the upcoming launch of its new US perpetual futures trading platform, Botanical. The launch of Botanical follows Bitnomial's successful $25 million funding round, led by Ripple.

Nillion | $25.00M | Seed | 2024-10-14

Privacy-focused blockchain project Nillion has raised $25 million in a funding round led by Hack VC and including backing from angel investors and strategic contributors from projects including Arbitrum, Worldcoin and Sei. Nillion builds its service around the concept of "blind computing," the processing of data without having to reveal its contents

Ellipsis Labs | $21.00M | Series B | 2024-10-31

Ellipsis Labs raises $20 million from Haun Ventures and an additional $1 million from other investors to accelerate the launch of Atlas, a layer-2 blockchain focused on verifiable finance. The team currently operates Phoenix, a Solana-based decentralized exchange. Ellipses closed a $20 million series A round in April, led by Paradigm.

Ithaca | $20.00M | 2024-10-10

Prolific crypto venture capital firm Paradigm announced on Friday it has invested $20 million in a spinoff company that's building a new Layer 2 blockchain called “Odyssey”, which it hopes will accelerate blockchain development. Georgios Konstantopoulos, Paradigm’s CTO and a general partner, will also act as Ithaca’s CEO.

Click to see all of October’s funding rounds here:

October Crypto VC Fund fundraise Announcements

VCs are continuing to announce their new raises…

• 2024-10-09: VanEck announces $30 million fund. Global asset manager VanEck has launched a ventures unit and hired two former Circle Ventures leaders to head the unit. It is raising $30 million for its first fund, which will invest in startups at the intersection of fintech, crypto and artificial intelligence.

• 2024-10-14: Gate Ventures, Movement Labs, Boon Ventures to launch $20M crypto fund. Venture capital firms Gate Ventures and Boon Ventures announced a partnership with Movement Labs for a new $20 million fund dedicated to Web3 startups. According to an Oct. 13 announcement, the fund targets the development of Move-based protocols, especially projects bridging the Move network with Ethereum-compatible (EVM) applications.

• 2024-10-24: GnosisDAO is launching a new $40 million venture fund targeting real-world assets, crypto infrastructure and payments. GnosisDAO is launching a $40 million venture fund to support early-stage projects under the Gnosis 3.0 roadmap.The GnosisVC fund has three areas of focus: real-world assets, crypto infrastructure and payment rails

Hackathons

Ongoing
MVP Hackathon November 1-10
$500k Available in prizes.

Upcoming
[REDACTED] Hackathon November 9 - 11
$700k Available in prizes.

ETHGlobal Bangkok November 15 - 17
$775k Available in prizes.

Finished (results in links)
TRON Grand Hackathon July 25 - October 8

ETHGlobal San Francisco October 18 - 20
$400k Available in prizes.

Demo Days

Upcoming
Supermoon & ICP @ Devcon | November 9

XRPL SEA HACKATHON 2024 | November 11

Polkadot Hackathon 2024 Bangkok Demo Day | November 16

Finished (results in links)
AllianceDAO ALL13 Demo Day |Oct 31

Open Accelerator Applications

Cointelegraph Acclerator | Apply by January 31
Virtual

Alliance | Apply by November 20
Virtual

Techstars Web3 2025 Program | Apply by November 20
In-Person, Dublin

That’s a wrap for October.

Are you interested in learning more about Bankless Ventures Fund 2? If so, please fill out this form and we will be in touch!

Thank you and good luck out there!

Ben Lakoff, CFA
https://twitter.com/benlakoff

Please enjoy the September Deal Flow Digest, a monthly newsletter recapping recent Crypto / web3 funding rounds.

Be sure to check out the Airtable below with ALL the deals, and the recent hackathon/demo day results (in the links).

Memecoins

Taking a break from the usual Crypto VC topics (e.g. DPI (Aug'24), Portfolio Allocation (Nov’23),  State of VC (Nov’23), etc.) to explore a highly relevant topic: Memecoins.

Spend enough time around “Bitcoiners” or “Bitcoin Maximalists,” and you'll begin to notice some common traits—an almost cult-like devotion to certain ideals.

If you were to think about the cult-like traits of Bitcoin, they’d likely include a focus on low time preference (saving and long-term thinking), self-sovereignty (controlling one’s own assets), minimalism / Stoicism, carnivore diets, and a deep ideological commitment to sound money and financial freedom. Rooted in a distrust of centralized systems and a desire for personal autonomy, these beliefs fuel a near-religious fervor within the Bitcoin community, unified by a strong sense of mission and purpose.

Beyond the well-known 4 year liquidity cycles, Bitcoin’s rise doesn’t exist in isolation—it reflects broader societal trends, from increasing loneliness and mental health struggles to the waning influence of traditional religion.

Bitcoin helps fill these voids by offering a sense of belonging, identity, and community in a digital-first world. For many, they provide an escape from traditional systems and a way to connect with others through shared humor, financial speculation, and collective engagement. 

More recently, the concept of “Financial Nihilism” has added fuel to the fire, a term popularized by Travis Kling in his tweet thread. Essentially that economic instability and disillusionment with traditional financial systems push younger generations further out the risk spectrum as a speculative outlet for financial freedom.

This trend ties back to fiat debasement and the growing sense of financial nihilism, driving investors further out on the risk spectrum. As fiat currencies lose value and traditional investments offer poor returns, investors—particularly retail investors—are turning to speculative assets like Bitcoin and memecoins. These reactions are responses to the same underlying issue: the erosion of trust in fiat currency systems due to inflationary policies. 

Boomers own all the house so people turn to gambling:

Crypto speculation has evolved with each cycle, focusing on ever riskier assets as inflation drives increasingly extreme behavior. In 2017, Ethereum ICOs (initial coin offerings) led the charge; 2020 saw DeFi Summer’s 10,000% APYs, and late 2021 was all about NFTs and Gaming Tokens. The next cycle? It might bring even more absurdity, as investors seek faster-moving assets to hedge against fiat debasement—enter memecoins.

Was Bitcoin just the original memecoin? Bitcoin is now viewed as a “long-term hedge against inflation”, while meme coins offer the potential for high-risk, high-reward speculation in the short term. In a world of fiat devaluation, it might mean that each cycle brings an increasingly speculative narrative, with meme coins representing the next stage of that speculative evolution.

Meme coins can be seen as a populist response to the dominance of VC-funded altcoins. The “Bring back ICOs” narrative reflects growing frustration, as the VC model often excludes retail investors from early-stage profits. In contrast, meme coins seemingly offer retail investors a way to participate from the start, without complex tokenomics or institutional control, giving them ownership over their own speculative movements. This makes meme coins almost viewed as a decentralized alternative to VC-backed projects, empowering retail investors who are frustrated by the traditional crypto model.

Meme coins are often considered "clean" in the crypto world because they are honest about their purpose: pure speculation. Community-driven and designed for fun and attention, they make no pretense of utility or technological advancement. This perceived transparency sets them apart from more complex projects that often overpromise and underdeliver.

Meme coins may represent the most culturally resonant form of crypto today, driven by speculation, community zeal, and a shared memetic identity. Whether they evolve into enduring social movements remains to be seen - but they are certainly worth watching.

Top 10 Crypto Funding Rounds

Celestia | $100.00M | 2024-09-22

The Celestia Foundation, the organization primarily behind the modular blockchain network, has raised $100 million in a round led by Bain Capital Crypto. Syncracy Capital, 1kx, Robot Ventures, Placeholder and others participated in the round, which brings the foundation's total financing to $155 million.

Tune.FM | $50.00M | 2024-09-11

Tune.FM has raised $50 million in capital from Global Emerging Markets, bringing its total funding to date to $80 million. The new investment will be allocated to provide liquidity for the protocol's JAM token (JAM), used within the platform to reward artists and users.

SDAX | $50.00M | Extended Series B | 2024-09-11

Singapore's Digital Asset Exchange, SDAX, closed a US$50 million Series B2 funding round led by Oman-based Muscat Precious Metals Refining Company ("MPMR").

TON (The Open Network) $30.00M | Strategic | 2024-09-18

Cryptocurrency exchange Bitget and Foresight Ventures announced a $30 million investment into The Open Network blockchain. The investment aims to enhance the development of Telegram-based projects, with a focus on tap-to-earn games. Casual Telegram-based video games like Hamster Kombat and Notcoin.

Drift Protocol | $25.00M | Series B | 2024-09-19

Solana-Based Drift Protocol has raises $25M to build 'SuperApp' for deFi trading. The round was led by Multicoin Capital, with participation from Blockchain Capital, Folius Ventures, Maelstrom and Primitive.

Syrupal Protocol | $25.00M | Seed| 2024-09-09

Syrupal has successfully closed a $3.75M seed round, bringing valuation to $25M! Supported by top crypto traders, Syrupal is redefining CeDeFi by merging centralized and decentralized systems for seamless trading and deep liquidity.

Helius | Series B | $21.75M | 2024-09-18

Helius has raised $21.75 million in Series B funding round backed by Haun Ventures, Founders Fund, Foundation Capital, 6th Man Ventures, Chapter One, Spearhead.

Hypernative | $16.00M | Series A | 2024-09-02

Hypernative has raised $16 million in a Series A funding round. Investors in the round led by Quantstamp include Bloccelerate VC, Boldstart Ventures, Borderless Capital, CMT Digital, IBI tech fund, Knollwood Investment Advisory, Re7 Capital, and some notable angels.

Hemi Labs | $15.00M | Strategic | 2024-09-17

Hemi Labs has raised $15 million in investment to develop and launch Hemi Network. The investment round was led by Binance Labs, Breyer Capital and Big Brain Holdings, also included participation from Crypto.com, Web3.com Ventures, HyperChain Capital, Alchemy, SALT Fund, Kelly Investments, Sunflower Capital, amongst others.

Initia | $14.00M | Series A | 2024-09-24

Initia has raised $14 million in a Series A funding round. Tomasz Tunguz's Theory Ventures led the round, with Delphi Ventures and Hack VC participating. Angel investors such as Keone Hon of Monad Labs, Bryan Pellegrino of LayerZero Labs, Zaki Manion of Sommelier Finance, Jordi Alexander of Selini Capital and Michael Egorov of Curve Finance also joined the round.

Click to see all of September’s funding rounds here:

September Crypto VC Fund fundraise Announcements

VCs are continuing to announce their new raises…

• 2024-09-05: Asylum Ventures has raised $55 million. Asylum Ventures is a new venture firm dedicated to the creative act of building companies. They invest $1-2 million in early-stage founders practicing the art of making startups.

• 2024-09-05: Halo Capital has raised $25 million. Daniel Howard, son of British hedge fund billionaire Alan Howard, and his partner Bhavin Vaid have announced the creation of a new crypto venture capital fund named Halo Capital. The fund has successfully raised $25 million and aims to bring a growth-oriented investment approach to early-stage crypto projects. Halo Capital is headquartered in New York and has a broad investment scope, covering areas from Bitcoin to decentralized artificial intelligence.

• 2024-09-12: Accolade has raised over $135 million across two new vehicles. The Washington, D.C.-based Accolade Partners, a fund of funds that has operated in blockchain since 2018. According to documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission last month, Accolade has raised just over $135 million across two blockchain vehicles.

• 2024-09-16: Hack VC has raised $77 million for an oversubscribed third blockchain fund. According to recent SEC filings, Hack VC has already raised $77 million towards its third fund, with additional commitments over its initial goal of $80 million.

• 2024-09-17: Dragonfly wants to raise $500 million for its fourth fund. Dragonfly wants to raise $500 million for its fourth fund, Bloomberg reported Tuesday, citing a person familiar with the matter. The crypto venture firm based in San Francisco has raised $250 million for the fund so far and aims to close financing by the end of 2025's first financial quarter. 

• 2024-09-18: Borderless Capital Announces $100M DePIN Fund to Power the Future of Distributed Infrastructure. Borderless Capital, a leading Web3 investment manager, today announced the launch of its third DePIN-focused fund, a $100 million fund dedicated to accelerating the growth and development of DePIN

Hackathons

Ongoing

TRON Grand Hackathon July 25 - October 8
$350k Available in prizes.

Upcoming

Permissionless October 9-11
General Admission to Permissionless included

ETHGlobal San Francisco October 18 - 20
$400k Available in prizes.

[REDACTED] Hackathon November 9 - 11
$500k Available in prizes.

ETHGlobal Bangkok November 15 - 17
$725k Available in prizes.

Finished (results in links)

L1X Hackathon June 28 - September 6
To Be Announced

ETH Online August 23 - September 13
$186k Available in prizes.

ETHGlobal Singapore September 20 - 22 (I was a Judge)
$350k Available in prizes.

Demo Days

Orange DAO Fellowship October 1 (today!)
Virtual

Open Accelerator Applications

BitcoinFi Accelerator | Apply by October 23
Virtual

Techstars Web3 2025 Program | Apply by November 20
In-Person, Dublin

That’s a wrap for September.

Are you interested in learning more about Bankless Ventures Fund 2? If so, please fill out this form and we will be in touch!

Thank you and good luck out there!

Ben Lakoff, CFA
https://twitter.com/benlakoff

Please enjoy the August Deal Flow Digest, a monthly newsletter recapping recent Crypto / web3 funding rounds.

Be sure to check out the Airtable below with ALL the deals, and the recent hackathon/demo day results (in the links).

Hope everyone (in the US) is enjoying their long weekend!

DPI

Each month, we highlight all the venture funding deployed into crypto startups, announcements about new VC funds that have raised capital, as well as listing all the super-early stage ideas from Hackathons and Demo Days.

Funding early-stage projects is great, but ultimately, these venture dollars need to exit their investments and pay back their limited partners. 

That’s where the metric Distributed to Paid-In Capital (DPI) comes in. Whilst managing a fund, we get interim measures during the life of the fund (e.g IRR, MOIC), but ultimately “you can’t eat IRR” and if you want to build a lasting venture capital organization - you need to start showing DPI for your fund.

I recently saw this metric from Carta’s 1Q24 VC Fund Report which is very concerning. DPI…. is nowhere to be found in earlier vintages that probably should start having DPI.

Keep in mind that this is traditional VC data from Carta, and is not strictly crypto venture. Crypto venture tends to get liquidity earlier (tokens) and things tend to go parabolic sooner (faster, more unicorns) - but I’d wager that the data here is somewhat similar for Crypto VCs… Not as much DPI as there should be from these vintages. 

Backing up, it’s important to remember that the basic VC model is…. Cyclical. 

VCs raise money, invest that money, exit via IPOs or M&A (or at times in crypto, token issuance).... And then they use these exits to raise more money. So this VC model doesn’t work if you aren’t exiting companies. 

With the Carta data and the lack of DPI, why is the data around DPI less than ideal? Some potential answers are:

1. Data is not broken up by stage. Early-stage, smaller return-focused funds are blended in with larger 100M+ growth-stage funds. These are VERY different strategies and (typically) invest in very different deals.

2. Startups staying private for longer (not going public). E.g.e ~37% of “unicorns” are held for >9 years by VC funds, including 13% held >12 years (from Pitchbook / NVCA Venture Monitor). It’s a huge hit to company morale if you go public and share price nose dives far below your previous (elevated) fundraising round valuation.

3. Lower M&A Activity due to heightened antitrust scrutiny. E.g. JetBlue’s $3.8 billion acquisition of rival Spirit Airlines. 

4. VC Funds are recycling, versus distributing. This may be true, although its impact seems belied by other Carta data showing median TVPI of 2017 funds at 1.78x and of 2018 funds at 1.37x. If recycling if being done to boost paper returns, but they still remain below 2x after seven years, is it working?

It’s also important to remember that with VC, averages are difficult. There are power laws in investing in early-stage projects, and thus the return profiles of VCs themselves also follow a power law. VC is a tricky one where you only start to find out 5 years later who the really good players are. We’re starting to see who was over-paying and who outperformed. With crypto, typically these cycles are (at times, much) faster.

Zooming in specifically at crypto VC, LOTS of funds were deployed in 2021/1H22. Precisely when valuations were very high, many of which into newly founded companies.

What does all this mean for the crypto venture capital industry?

As the crypto industry continues to mature, perhaps we can glean some insight from the traditional venture capital industry. Some thoughts:

• Companies private for longer. Delaying token launch / longer lockups for investors.

• Valuations matter, returns start to normalize. Do we need the 50th L2 at 10B+ valuation?

• Crypto VCs will have to start profit-taking and show DPI in their earlier funds to raise subsequent funds.

Ultimately, startup investing is hard. Unicorns are the ones that generate the higher returns to VC’s, in general they are so hard to pick as they seem so often like bad ideas.

Crypto VC vintages from 2021/22 probably have some mark downs in their portfolio, I think the Yuga Labs (Bored Ape NFT Creator) raise of $450M in a Seed Round (at $4B Valuation), or OpenSea (NFT Marketplace) raising $300M in a Series C Round (at $13.3B valuation).... is a hard game to win.

But then in 2023/24 we are seeing early-stage rounds at attractive valuations that potentiall offer great return opportunities for venture investors. Additionally, in crypto, Liquid funds can achieve the best of both worlds—venture capital economics (investing in young tokens for outsized returns) combined with public market liquidity.

I still think that crypto vc will continue to outperform traditional VC, it just might not be with such short liquidity cycles as we’ve seen in previous cycles. As you can see below, crypto VCs continue to announce new funds and we still see strong founders entering the space to build impactful startups.

It’s ugly out there in the public crypto markets - don’t forget to zoom out (and perhaps touch some grass).

Top 10 Crypto Funding Rounds

Story Protocol | $80.00M | Series B | 2024-08-20

Story Protocol has raised $80 million in a Series B funding round led by a16z crypto. Other investors in the round included Polychain Capital, Stability AI's SVP and board member Scott Trowbridge, K11 founder and billionaire Adrian Cheng and digital art collector Cozomo de Medici.

Bridge | $58.00M | 2024-08-28

The web3 payment firm Bridge has raised a total of $58 million in funding. The firm has backers including Sequoia, Ribbit, Index, Haun Ventures and others.

Chaos Labs | $55.00M | Series A | 2024-08-14

Chaos Labs has completed a $55 million Series A round of financing. The round was led by Haun Ventures, with participation from well-known investment institutions such as F-Prime Capital, Slow Ventures, Spartan Capital, and large investors such as Lightspeed Venture Partners, Galaxy Ventures, and PayPal Ventures. Chaos Labs also received support from angel investors such as Anatoly Yakovenko of Solana and Francesco Agosti of Phantom.

Sahara AI | $43.00M| Series A | 2024-08-13

Sahara AI Raises $43M to Disrupt Centralized AI. This substantial funding, co-led by visionaries Binance Labs, Pantera Capital, and Polychain Capital, with participation from Samsung, Sequoia Capital, Matrix Partners, dao5, GeekCartel, Nomad Capital, SCB 10X, Canonical Capital, Mirana Ventures, Foresight Ventures, Dispersion Capital, Aegis Ventures, Alumni Ventures, and Tangent Ventures, among others, is more than just capital — it's a powerful endorsement of mission to democratize AI.

Fabric Cryptography | $33.00M | Series A 2024-08-18

Fabric Cryptography has raised $33 million in Series A funding round co-led by Blockchain Capital and 1kx. Other participants included Offchain Labs, Polygon, and Matter Labs. The fresh funds will be used to "build computing chips, software and cryptographic algorithms," the company said.

WSPN | $30.00M | Seed | 2024-08-15

WSPN has raised $30 million in Seed funding round. This round was led by Folius Ventures and Foresight Venture, with participation from prominent investors including Hash Global, Generative Ventures, Redpoint Capital, and a consortium of top-tier investment companies, exchanges and foundations.

Lumia (Orion Protocol) | $25.00M | 2024-08-06

Lumia, a zkEVM-based Layer 2 platform built on Polygon CDK, has announced raising $25 million from the sale of real-world asset (RWA) nodes. With the $25 million raised, Lumia is set to advance its technological capabilities and expand its market presence. 

Space and Time | $20.00M | Series A | 2024-08-27

Space and Time (SxT) Labs, based in Los Angeles, has raised $20 million in a Series A funding round, bringing its total funding to $50 million. This latest funding round was led by Framework Ventures, with participation from investors including Lightspeed Faction, Arrington Capital, and Hivemind Capital. Microsoft's M12 Ventures, DCG, and OKX Ventures were also involved.

EMC | $20.00M | 2024-08-28

Edge Matrix Chain (EMC), a multichain infrastructure, has raised $20 million in a funding round led by P2 Ventures and Amber Group. The project said that investors, including One Comma, Kapley Judge and Associated Corporations, Cyberrock Venture Fund, Candaq Fintech Group, and Hameem Raees Chowdhury, participated in the funding round.

Andrena | $18.00M | Extended Series A | 2024-08-06

Andrena has raised $18 million in a funding round led by Dragonfly. Other investors in the round include CMT Digital, Castle Island Ventures, Wintermute Ventures, 6th Man Ventures and ParaFi, Andrena said Wednesday. This was a Series A extension round and structured as a simple agreement for future equity (SAFE) with token warrants.

Click to see all of August’s funding rounds here:

August Crypto VC Fund fundraise Announcements

VCs are continuing to announce their new raises…

• 2024-08-14: TON Foundation alumni raise $40 million fund for new firm, TON Ventures. Two former Foundation members, Ian Wittkopp and Inal Kardan, have launched TON Ventures with an inaugural fund of $40 million. Wittkopp and Kardan previously served at the TON Foundation as the director of TON Accelerator and the gaming lead, respectively.

• 2024-08-24: Robot Ventures Raises $75 Million for Early-Stage Crypto Venture Capital Fund. Robot Ventures, an early-stage investor in crypto startups such as EigenLayer, Lido Finance and Flashbots, raised $75 million for its latest venture-capital fund.

• 2024-08-28: Investment Firm Lemniscap Raises $70M Fund Targeting Early Stage Web3 Projects. Lemniscap, a Cayman Islands-headquartered investment firm, said it raised a $70 million fund to back early stage Web3 projects.The fund will focus on projects in the Bitcoin ecosystem, reflecting a trend of the past 18 months, whereby developers have sought to introduce to the world's oldest blockchain utility that is more commonly associated with the likes of the Ethereum network.

• 2024-08-29: Parafi Capital’s $120M fundraise signals renewed growth for crypto funds. Digital asset management firm Parafi Capital has successfully raised $120 million from investors, including Theta Capital Management and Accolade Partners, signaling strong growth in crypto funding. 

Hackathons

Ongoing

L1X Hackathon June 28 - September 6
$500k Available in prizes.

TRON Grand Hackathon July 25 - October 8
$350k Available in prizes.

ETH Online August 23 - September 13
$186k Available in prizes.

Finished (results in links)

Superhack 2024 August 2 - 16
$200k Available in prizes.

Upcoming

ETHGlobal Singapore September 20 - 22 (I’m a Judge)
$350k Available in prizes.

Permissionless October 9-11
General Admission to Permissionless included

ETHGlobal San Francisco October 18 - 20
$200k Available in prizes.

Demo Days

Supra September 4
Seoul, Korea

Beacon S24 September 12
Virtual

Polkadot Hackathon Demo Day September 17
Singapore

XDC Demo Day September 17
Singapore

IOTA Demo Day September 17
Singapore

AI & Web3 Demo Day September 19
Singapore

XDC Network Demo Day September 20
Singapore

Open Accelerator Applications

CryptoOracle
Virtual

That’s a wrap for August.

Are you interested in learning more about Bankless Ventures Fund 2? If so, please fill out this form and we will be in touch!

Thank you and good luck out there!

Ben Lakoff, CFA
https://twitter.com/benlakoff