Photo Credit: Unsplash/ Raphael Wild
The crypto sector, that slipped down from its trillion-dollar market cap earlier this year, has continued to tickle the fancies of venture capitalists despite the slump. Web3-related firms have already roped-in $30.3 billion (roughly Rs. 240 crore) in fundings between January and June this year, analytics firms Messari and Dove Metrics said in a recent report. This collection has already outpaced the funds raised by the crypto sector last year. In 2021, a total of $30.2 billion was raised by Web3 firms in 1,313 rounds.
So far, companies working around centralised finance (CeFi), decentralised finance (DeFi), and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) have garnered the aforementioned amount in 1,199 funding rounds.
Over a third of the total funds raised went into the CeFi sector, making up $10.2 billion (roughly Rs. 80,781 crore) in investment. CeFi allows people to route all the crypto trading orders through centralised exchanges.
A total of $3.2 billion (roughly Rs. 25,355 crore) were poured on crypto exchanges. Among other CeFi services, payment services, market makers, and savings/banking accounts businesses also received investments.
Further, $8.6 billion (roughly Rs. 68,131 crore) were raised by players in the core Web3 and NFT arenas. Gaming-related NFTs grabbed the majority share of investment in NFTs.
As per the report Axie Infinity, Aavegotchi, CryptoKitties, Galaxy Fight Club, and Gods Unchained are among the top crypto-based games.
New NFT users continue to be onboarded into the ecosystem despite most NFT collections being overvalued. pic.twitter.com/W68fClUR3U
— Messari (@MessariCrypto) August 4, 2022
Adoption of crypto as an investment tool mushroomed last year, with the use of blockchain also gaining ground - even if the revolutionary changes from the technology promised to industries such as finance and commodities remain elusive, a Reuters report had claimed in July.
Among the mega US crypto deals in 2022: $400 million (roughly Rs. 3,171 crore) was raised by the US arm of crypto exchange FTX in January; a $450 million (roughly Rs. 3,600 crore) fundraising round by blockchain developer ConsenSys in March; and $400 million (roughly Rs. 3,171 crore) raised by stablecoin issuer Circle a month later.
Lisbon-based Fedi, an app designed to help people receive, hold and spend Bitcoin, said this month it had raised $4.2 million (roughly Rs. 30 crore) in seed financing.
For the latest tech news and reviews, follow Gadgets 360 on X, Facebook, WhatsApp, Threads and Google News. For the latest videos on gadgets and tech, subscribe to our YouTube channel. If you want to know everything about top influencers, follow our in-house Who'sThat360 on Instagram and YouTube.