Crypto Industry Fundraising at Lowest Levels Since 2020
A report released by crypto intelligence firm Messari on Thursday showed a continuing downtrend in crypto industry funding in the face of regulatory uncertainty in the U.S. and the opening of the criminal trial of FTX founder and former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried.
Although Bitcoin's price is up more than 60% on the year, the 36% drop in crypto industry fundraising from the second quarter to the third in 2023 is a clear indication that the crypto bear market hasn't ended.It's a continuation of a downward trend that started following a peak of more than $15 billion in fundraising in the first quarter of 2022.
The total amount raised in the latest quarter, at about $2.1 billion, is the least since the fourth quarter of 2020, the Messari report said. In addition, the 297 fundraising deals made in the crypto industry in the quarter were the fewest since the fourth quarter of 2020.
Blockchain infrastructure was the sector receiving the largest amount of funding overall at 18% of the total amount raised, while the decentralized finance, or DeFi, sector posted the most activity with 67 deals closed.
More specifically, proposed scaling solutions received 43% of the money raised by blockchain infrastructure projects. For the DeFi sector, exchanges nailed down both the largest number of deals and most money raised. The activity in these two sectors has been a trend for the past year, in addition to money flowing to the gaming and services sectors.
Binance Labs was the most active crypto industry investor in the third quarter of 2023, with 23 deals made. Its main focus for crypto industry investments has been DeFi, gaming, and projects focusing on zero-knowledge and privacy-focused technologies.
Binance Labs accounted for more than
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