The winds of crypto winter may be still blowing, but it doesn't seem to be stopping venture capital firms from piling into cryptocurrencies. In fact, recent events influenced by the bear market, such as the collapse of FTX, could bring "further trust into the ecosystem," according to Jez Mohideen, co-founder and CEO at Laser Digital, the recently launched digital assets arm of the Asian giant Nomura Holdings. "More traditional players are entering the space who can help to regulate the sector. This means players who understand regulation as well as the importance of clients' aggregation, stability, and execution," explained Mohideen, …
2022 was a big year for crypto venture capital despite multiple high-profile meltdowns and the FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) tsunami that followed. However, the funds may not flow as easily this year, a crypto researcher warns. The number of deals and amount invested by venture firms into Web3 and crypto startups was a little over $30 billion in 2022, according to Galaxy Research Head of Firmwide Research, Alex Thorn, described it as a “monster year” that was only just eclipsed by the $31 billion in VC investments in 2021. However, in a Jan. 5 report, Thorn stated that macroeconomic …
2022 was a watershed year for crypto venture capital, as investors poured tens of billions of dollars into blockchain-focused startups despite the overwhelmingly bearish trend in asset prices. Is the VC-dominated crypto funding model good for the industry? Only time will tell. Cointelegraph Research is still in the process of tallying all the funding figures for the year, but 2022 easily outpaced all other years in terms of total capital raised and deals completed. VC inflows were above $14 billion in each of the first two quarters before receding to just under $5 billion in the third quarter — still …
It’s been a tough year for crypto, and venture capital activity confirms it. The collapse of FTX in November was the latest and most shocking in a series of closures of key market players this year — including Celsius, Voyager and BlockFi — that have shaken investor sentiment and wiped out $1.5 trillion in market capitalization from cryptocurrency space. Blockchain venture capital funding has been on a downward slope since May 2022, and November was no different, with inflows declining even further. However, the total capital inflows for 2022 have surpassed 2021 by almost $6 billion. According to Cointelegraph Research, …
Does the crypto industry’s funding space need an overhaul? This is one of many questions swirling in the wake of FTX’s downfall: When the prominent exchange collapsed, it left behind a long line of helpless creditors and lenders — including many promising projects dependent on funds promised by Sam Bankman-Fried and company. But there is a bigger problem at the heart of the current funding picture, wherein deep-pocketed venture capital firms throw their weight around in the low-liquidity Web3 market, heavily backing early-stage projects before cashing out at a profit once retail has FOMO'd into the market. For all the …
The third quarter of 2022 saw a reduction in venture capital activity across the entire blockchain industry. Investors appear to be moving away from decentralized finance (DeFi) and into Web3. The crypto industry tends to have a problem with overusing buzzwords, like the way “DeFi” was everywhere just a couple of years ago. In 2022, it seems like every new startup and established blockchain company alike is taking up the “Web3” mantle. But what exactly is Web3? Cointelegraph Research delved into the matter in its recently released Q3 2022 Venture Capital Report. To further understand the subject, it held a …
The crypto markets have been in decline since the start of the second quarter of 2022. Each time it seemed like the apparent crypto winter would experience a minor thaw, another notable collapse happened: Celsius, Three Arrows Capital, and more recently, FTX. Approaching the end of 2022, it appears that the same negative sentiments are likely to remain. While some analysts say that Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) derivatives are currently flashing positive signals for the market due to their high volatility, that same volatility is impacting the sentiment of other areas, including regulation, mining, nonfungible tokens (NFTs) and crypto …
Crypto mining company Genesis Digital Assets was the biggest venture investment made by Alameda Research, FTX's sister company and in the center of the exchange's bankruptcy. Documents disclosed by Bloomberg on Dec. 3 show that Genesis Digital raised $1.15 billion from Alameda in less than nine months. The capital infusion was made before the crypto prices downturn, between August 2021 and April of this year. Genesis Digital is the major United States-based Bitcoin mining company, and it's not related to Genesis Capital, the trading company with $175 million worth of funds locked away in an FTX trading account. Former FTX …
After weeks of negotiations on a potential buyout of Zipmex, venture capital fund V Ventures has reportedly reached a deal to acquire the embattled cryptocurrency exchange. V Ventures, a subsidiary of Thoresen Thai Agencies (TTA) public company, is looking to purchase a 90% stake in Zipmex crypto exchange, Bloomberg reported on Dec. 2. The VC fund is about to acquire Zipmex for about $100 million in digital assets and cash, anonymous sources familiar with the matter claimed. Citing a court hearing on Friday in Singapore, the report says that Zipmex was offered $30 million in cash and the rest in …
Despite venture capital funding halving in October, there seem to be funds that still remain bullish on this space investing in emerging markets, Web3 and infrastructure. But, most people do not know who these mysterious funds are or what they are made of, or if there is a project starting up, how to get in touch with these funds. That is why Cointelegraph Research created a Crypto Funds Database, which keeps track of a list of nearly 900 different crypto funds from around the world. This database is designed for those looking to keep up with contacts from the movers …
Blockchain venture capital inflows sharply decreased in October from the previous month. According to Cointelegraph Research, the number of individual deals dropped from 93 to 69 monthly. The Cointelegraph Research Terminal VC database, which compiles comprehensive details on deals, mergers and acquisition activity, investors, crypto companies, funds and more, shows venture capital inflows plummeted 48.6%, totaling $843.5 million in venture capital (VC) investment, down from $1.64 billion in September. Big raises despite difficult market conditions It’s not all bad news. Signals that there is still active interest by VCs in the blockchain industry are flashing daily. In the decentralized finance …
While the FTX collapse may have had a severe effect on the broader crypto market, some companies bore the brunt of the impact and were directly hit by the storm that the embattled crypto exchange brought. Here are some of the affected companies that Cointelegraph tracked up to Nov. 17, 2022. Genesis Institutional trading firm Genesis announced on Nov. 11 that it had $175 million in locked funds within the firm's trading account in FTX. However, the company noted that this does not have an impact on its market-making activities. Furthermore, the trading firm clarified that this exposure is not …