10 giant crypto and blockchain towers alone raised $ 3.9 billion this year

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Sam Bankman-Fried. CEO of FTX, which recently raised $ 900 million, setting new funding record

Vergile Simon Bertrand for Forbes

Blockchain startups continue to set new funding records. Ten of the twelve biggest rounds of the table ever by emerging market companies, totaling $ 3.9 billion, took place in 2021, with five more months to go. Almost half of that amount has been collected in the past two months alone over four mega-tours.

The cornerstone of this recent wave of investment comes from the FTX crypto derivatives exchange, incorporated into Antingua, which signed the largest private contract in industry history with $ 900 million last month, doubling the record of its forerunner, digital infrastructure provider Circle, and valuing both. -year of exchange at $ 18 billion. The round also doubled the net worth of the world’s richest crypto billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried from $ 8.3 billion to $ 16.2 billion.

PitchBook

Topping the list of the most prolific US investors in the space as of July 29 is Barry Silberts Digital Currency Group, which has backed 111 startups vertically, according to research firm Pitchbook, followed by 79 from Coinbase Ventures, 74 from Pantera Capital, 68 from Blockchain Capital, 58 from Andreessen Horowitz and 51 from Polychain Capital.

With the crypto markets returning to the upside, we expect more important rounds to follow. In the meantime, here are the 12 biggest increases in crypto history (not counting funding raised by companies operating primarily in non-crypto industries):

Date of transaction: July 20, 2021

Round VC: Series B

Notable investors: Paradigm, Sequoia Capital, Ribbit Capital, Third Point, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Coinbase Ventures, Softbank, Sino Global Capital, Circle

Post-currency valuation: $ 18 billion

Previous assessment: $ 1.2 billion

A relative laggard among cryptocurrency exchanges, FTX, launched in May 2019, has differentiated itself from industry giants like Binance and Coinbase by offering even inexperienced traders advanced features and sophisticated investment products, including including options, futures, volatility products and leveraged tokens. FTX averages over $ 10 billion in daily trading volume; he has increased his income tenfold this year and 75 times since his Serie A round.

Date of transaction: May 28, 2021

Notable Investors: Fidelity Management and Research Company, Marshall Wace, Digital Currency Group, FTX, Breyer Capital

Post-currency valuation: N / A

Previous valuation: $ 3 billion

Payment and treasury infrastructure provider Circle is best known as a leading developer of USDC stablecoin, which has grown over 3,400% this year. Assets now stand at $ 25 billion in circulation and the company claims to have supported more than $ 785 billion in on-chain transactions. On July 8, Circle announced its intention to go public through a merger with Concord Acquisition Corp., a publicly traded special purpose acquisition company led by former Barclays CEO Bob Diamond. The transaction valued the company at $ 4.5 billion.

Bitmain: $ 422 million

Date of transaction: August 7, 2018

Round VC: B1 Series

Notable Investors: Crimson Capital China, Bluebell (Asia), Jumbo Sheen Group, Lioness Capital, Palace Investment Company, Pavilion Capital

Post-currency valuation: $ 15 billion

Previous assessment: $ 12 billion

The world’s leading manufacturer of bitcoin mining hardware, Bitmain also operates Antpool, one of the major bitcoin mining pools, accounting for 13% of the bitcoin network’s hash, or computing power. Shortly after the capital increase of $ 422 million, the Beijing-based company filed for an IPO on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in September 2018, but the offer failed amid the bitcoin and market crash. cooling of the market.

Date of transaction: June 10, 2021

Round VC: C Series

Notable investors: 10T Holdings, Cathay Innovation, Draper Esprit, Draper Associates, Draper Dragon, DCG.

Post-currency valuation: $ 1.5 billion

Previous assessment: $ 287.1 million

Ledger produces hardware wallets, dedicated devices used to store digital assets. It has sold over 3 million hardware wallets in 190 countries to date and has over 1.5 million monthly users on Ledger Live, a mobile companion to the Ledger hardware wallet that allows users to manage and store their assets. . The company has integrated with platforms such as Coinify, a crypto payment and exchange platform; Changelly, a crypto exchange; and Compound, a decentralized crypto borrowing and lending platform.

Date of transaction: March 11, 2021

Round VC: D Series

Notable Investors: Bain Capital Ventures, DST Global Partners, Pomp Investments, Tiger Global, Susquehanna Government Products

Post-currency valuation: $ 3 billion

Previous assessment: $ 435 million

Founded in 2017, New Jersey-based BlockFi is now a leading cryptocurrency lending provider. Its products cover several categories, including crypto-backed loans and interest-bearing accounts through which investors can earn interest on their crypto holdings. Rumors of a potential BlockFi IPO started circulating last July following announcements of a job opportunity, part of which involved helping the company go public. Last month, regulators in Texas, New Jersey and Alabama began questioning the legality of businesses’ BlockFi Interest Account (BIA) offering.

Date of transaction: June 9, 2021

VC Tour: Sale of Private Placement Tokens

Notable Investors: Andreessen Horowitz, Polychain Capital, Alameda Research, Blockchange Ventures, CMS Holdings.

Post-currency valuation: N / A

Previous rating: N / A

A proof-of-stake blockchain challenger to Ethereum, Solana claims to offer both improved scalability and speed. According to blockchair data, the network is capable of processing over 1,000 transactions per second (TPS), compared to Ethereums 14 TPS. Solana has facilitated over 19 billion on-chain transitions to date and hosts a range of decentralized products, including Serum, a decentralized exchange founded by billionaire FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried.

Date of transaction: July 27, 2021

Round VC: D Series

Notable investors: Sequoia Capital, SCB 10X (the venture capital arm of Siam Commercial Bank), Coatue, Stripes, Spark Capital, DRW VC

Post-currency valuation: $ 2 billion

Previous rating: N / A

The New York Cryptocurrency Custodian provides an enterprise-grade platform to move, store, and issue digital assets including bitcoin, ethereum, polkadot, and others. A key differentiating feature for Fireblocks’ custody offering is its use of a new form of wallet security known as Multi-Party Computing (MPC), which allows multiple parties each holding their own private data to assess. a calculation without ever revealing any private data. owned by each party. Since its inception in 2019, Fireblocks has secured over $ 1 trillion in digital assets.

Date of transaction: March 30, 2021

VC tour: 5th lap

Notable investors: Coatue Management, Andreessen Horowitz, Michael Jordan, Kevin Durant

Post-currency valuation: $ 2.6 billion

Previous rating: N / A

The Vancouver-based startup is best known as the developer of NBA Top Shot, an NFT marketplace for highlights or highlights of basketball videos. The project, which has already passed the $ 500 million mark in transaction volume, is largely responsible for the boom in non-fungible tokens (NFTs), essentially digital proof of ownership traceable on a blockchain. Previously, Dapper Labs developed a popular Ethereum set of repeatable collectibles called CryptoKitties.

Date of transaction: May 11, 2021

VC round: 1st round

Notable Investors: Peter Thiels Thiel Capital and Founders Fund, Alan Howard, Galaxy Digital, Nomura.

Post-currency valuation: N / A

Previous rating: N / A

In May, Block.one, the company behind the open source software EOSIO, launched an independent subsidiary focused on releasing Bullish, a new blockchain-based cryptocurrency exchange. The company has collected more than $ 10 billion in cash and digital assets, including the $ 300 million investment cycle, from renowned investors such as Peter Thiel, Alan Howard and Richard Li, among others . In July, just two months after its launch, Bullish revealed its intention to go public via a PSPC merger at a valuation of $ 9 billion.

Date of transaction: April 29, 2021

Round VC: D Series

Notable Investors: Oak HC / FT, PayPal Ventures, Declaration Partners, Liberty City Ventures, Bank of America

Post-currency valuation: $ 2.4 billion

Previous rating: N / A

Paxos technology powers PayPal-owned crypto brokerage services PayPal and Venmo, which allow millions of users to buy, hold and sell bitcoin and a handful of other major cryptocurrencies. The company’s other products and services include a stable US dollar-backed Paxos Standard (PAX), an itBit cryptocurrency exchange, and an equity settlement service used by Credit Suisse, Societe Generale and Instinet, the trading arm of Nomura Holdings.

Blockchain.com: $ 300 million

Date of transaction: March 24, 2021

Round VC: C Series

Notable Investors: DST Global Partners, Lightspeed Venture Partners, VY Capital

Post-currency valuation: $ 5.2 billion

Previous valuation: $ 3 billion

Blockchain.com provides a variety of crypto services to retail and institutional clients, but is best known for its non-custodial digital wallets. Unlike their third-party controlled counterparts, these wallets give users full control over their private keys which represent the ownership of crypto assets. The London-based company claims to have processed 28% of all bitcoin transactions since 2012.

Transaction date: March 16, 2020

Round VC: Series B

Notable investors: Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), BCG Digital Ventures, PayU

Post-currency valuation: N / A

Previous rating: N / A

In February 2020, the crypto firm ICE (the owner of the New York Stock Exchange) announced the acquisition of Bridge2 Solutions, a loyalty program provider, to power Bakkts’ one-stop retail platform. Called the Bakkt App, the service allows users to bundle various digital assets, including loyalty points, rewards programs, gaming assets, and cryptocurrencies into a single wallet. In January, Bakkt announced its IPO via a PSPC merger with VPC Impact Acquisition Holdings for an enterprise value of approximately $ 2.1 billion. Upon close of trading, the combined company will be listed on the New York Stock Exchange as Bakkt Holdings, Inc.

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