Bitcoin DeFi Presents a Large Opportunity
Weekly Recap
Funding fell 27% from $282 million last week to $206 million this week across 34 deals. Triple-digit funding seems to be the new normal, as there has been a notable uptick in the private market in recent weeks. Despite the overall increase in activity, there has been a lack of CeFi-related projects in recent weeks, with just one deal in each of the last two weeks. Agora was the singular CeFi deal this week, which raised $12 million in a seed round led by DragonFly Capital. Agora’s first product is a fully collateralized and freely tradable stablecoin. Agora was co-founded by Nick VanEck (son of VanEck CEO), and Agora’s reserve fund will be managed by VanEck itself.
As private market activity is picking up, many companies are looking to raise large sums for new crypto funds. Over the past week, there have been reports of Paradigm looking to raise $750 million, Galaxy Digital and Hack VC each raising $100 million, and Hivemind Capital looking for $50 million. Additionally, Alliance raised $10 million from both Brevan Howard and Galaxy Digital and is seeking to raise an additional $80 million. The market is still far off from 2021 and 2022 peaks, but it is beginning to accelerate in that direction.