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0 CommentsVenture Capital funds have already invested more than $ 17 billion in the cryptocurrency market in the first half of 2021, marking a new annual record since 2018. According to data provider PitchBook, that’s around the total amount raised in all previous years combined.
Much of the funds out of crypto deals in 2021 came as a single investment when in May, a blockchain software company Block.one, backed by billionaires Peter Thiel, Louis Bacon, and Alan Howard, poured over $10 billion of cash and digital assets into a new crypto exchange Bullish Global. Later, the company also led an additional $300 million funding round.
Even ignoring that biggest deal, the remaining $7.2 billion investments would already be comparable to the previous record of $7.4 billion in 2018, though we still have six months in this year.
The maker of hardware crypto wallets Ledger SAS raised $380 million from investors, including 10T Holdings, and became the second biggest deal this year.
“I’m of the opinion that everyone will own crypto, it’s just a matter of what price they get in,” said Ian Rogers, Ledger’s CEO. “We’re still at the protocol phase, we know that there’s something here, you just can’t picture what it’ll exactly look like. For Ledger, we’re definitely not at the selling an iPod at Target moment yet.”
Other notable crypto investments include $350 million invested in BlockFi and Dapper Labs, $300 million invested in Paxos and Blockchain.com.
In 2021 we can see an accelerating interest in the crypto market. Recently, after the colossal success of Coinbase, Andreessen Horowitz has announced plans to launch a $1 billion crypto investment fund.
Earlier this year, Galaxy Digital showed intentions to acquire a digital assets infrastructure provider BitGo by $1.2 billion, while Goldman Sachs partnered with Galaxy Digital to trade Bitcoin futures through the company and its latest acquisition.
