- The venture capital landscape for AI startups has become more focused and selective.
- Investors are starting to gain confidence and make choices in picking platforms for their future investments.
- There is a debate between buying or building AI solutions, with some seeing value in large companies building their own AI properties.
- With the proliferation of AI startups, venture capitalists are finding it harder to choose which ones to invest in.
- Startups that can deliver real, measurable impact and have a working product are more likely to attract investors.
Main topic: Decreased venture funding for crypto companies and increased interest in secondary deals.
Key points:
1. Global venture funding for crypto companies fell by 78% in the first half of the year compared to the same period last year.
2. Crypto-focused venture capitalists still have ample funds and are increasingly buying shares in secondary deals.
3. Shares of previously high-valued crypto startups are being sold at significant discounts in secondary transactions.
Main topic: An investment firm is attempting to turn equities into crypto tokens that comply with securities laws, with the backing of a well-known trading firm.
Key points:
1. Susquehanna International Group is supporting a project called Dinari, which aims to tokenize stocks in a compliant manner.
2. Dinari has acquired a broker-dealer and registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission, allowing it to distribute dividends and maintain records of securities ownership.
3. The company's flagship product, dShares, enables investors outside the US to use cryptocurrencies to purchase shares of major US companies and exchange-traded funds.
Venture capitalist Arthur Cheong believes that the most significant gains in the crypto space will come from projects without VC investment and not traded on centralized exchanges. He cites Akash Network as an example of a promising project with good fundamentals and industry tailwind.
Main topic: The capital crunch in the crypto industry and its impact on Bitcoin-focused companies, using Blockstream as an example.
Key points:
1. The crypto industry has experienced a significant decrease in capital deployment due to regulatory scrutiny and skeptical investors.
2. Bitcoin-focused companies, including Blockstream, are struggling to raise funds as fewer checks are being written.
3. Blockstream, which relies on traditional VC investment rather than issuing its own token, has faced challenges amid the funding crunch and the turbulence in the crypto market.
Venture capital firm Vessel Capital has launched a $55 million fund to invest in Web3 infrastructure and applications, aiming to assist early-stage crypto founders in launching and growing their projects by providing guidance and advice. The fund's resources will be deployed over a five-year period, and the team's experience as startup founders will enable them to better understand entrepreneurs' needs.
BitMEX founder Arthur Hayes warns that traditional finance institutions are planning to take control of the cryptocurrency industry by offering crypto derivatives and becoming gatekeepers for their deposit bases, potentially compromising the decentralization and ethos of cryptocurrencies.
Former Goldman Sachs executive and Real Vision CEO Raoul Pal explains that crypto assets, unlike other systems, allow users to own and operate pieces of a network, creating scarcity in an increasingly digital world and leading to potentially much larger market cycles.
Crypto-related stocks soar as the chances of fund companies offering Bitcoin ETFs increase, though Coinbase Global faces obstacles.
ARK Invest CEO Cathie Wood predicts that the market capitalization of cryptocurrencies will increase by over 2,100% in less than seven years, driven by institutional investment and the potential approval of a Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF), with the total crypto market cap potentially reaching $25 trillion by 2030.
BlackRock's entry into the crypto space with its application for a Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) marks a significant turning point that dispels the notion of cryptocurrencies as a passing trend, signaling the growing institutional interest in Bitcoin and the crypto industry.
A lack of basic infrastructure is hindering cryptocurrency adoption in Africa, according to Christian Duffus, founder of Fonbnk, who focuses on innovative ways to onboard new crypto users in developing markets and highlights the role of education and regulation in the process.
Market makers in the crypto sector are facing increased costs and lower profitability as investors shy away from the industry following a $2 trillion market crash, leading them to diversify their activities, store digital assets away from trading venues, and use them as collateral to borrow tokens for deployment on crypto platforms.
Despite a decrease in venture capital investments in June, new crypto projects are still attracting funding, including Orbital's $6.4 million raise for expanding blockchain payment infrastructure, unshETH's $3.3 million seed round for decentralized finance solutions, ZTX's $13 million funding for Web3 infrastructure development, Stroom Network's $3.5 million raise for Bitcoin staking, and Fxhash's $5 million funding for its digital art platform.
Crypto investors are discussing their favorite altcoins that have the potential to make them "incredibly rich," with coins like DeFiChain, Solana, Shiba Inu, and Ethereum being mentioned among others.
Crypto asset manager CoinShares plans to establish a hedge fund unit for qualified US investors in order to provide institutional investors with actively managed exposure to digital assets outside of Europe due to the changing macro environment marked by interest rates and inflation.
Blockchain Capital closes two new funds with $580 million to be invested in crypto gaming and decentralized finance projects, while venture capital firms SkyBridge Capital, Atlas Merchant Capital, and Vector Capital are among the final bidders to acquire SVB Capital, the venture arm of Silicon Valley Bank. Additionally, Nomura launches a new Bitcoin fund, and Citi Token Services provides payments and liquidity through its private blockchain. Hut 8 also receives final approval for its merger with US Bitcoin.
A prominent crypto venture capitalist names Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, Cosmos, and Celestia as the core blockchain networks in the digital asset space, each with its own defining characteristic.
Deep-pocketed crypto investors are moving hundreds of millions of dollars worth of Bitcoin and other digital assets to Coinbase and unknown wallets, according to data from whale-surveying platform Whale Alert.
Venture capital investor Tim Draper shares his excitement for artificial intelligence and predicts a bright future for Bitcoin, emphasizing its decentralized nature and potential for increased adoption. He also discusses his successful investments, his private university, and his Bitcoin-native digital nation, which aims to improve governance.
