This week, 42 projects raised $165 million, led by Digital Asset ($50M), Ostium ($20M), and Fin ($17M), while Strategy and Lion Group added a combined $21.7 million in Bitcoin to their corporate treasuries. Kraken, Galaxy, and Solmate each announced strategic acquisitions spanning tokenized equities, liquid staking, and Solana infrastructure, and Further and 3iQ launched a new $100 million market-neutral digital asset fund. On Crypto Twitter, Haseeb Qureshi and Santiago Santos sparred over L1 valuations, Jason Choi warned that gambling-driven usage limits major L1 rerating potential, Jake Chervinsky detailed political blockers to the Senate’s market structure bill, and Evan Fisher argued that latent capital markets stand to benefit most from tokenization.
The Pitch: Strategy (Nasdaq: MSTR) added 130 BTC for ~$11.7M (avg. $89,960/BTC), lifting total holdings to 650,000 BTC, and simultaneously established a $1.44B USD reserve to help fund preferred dividends and debt interest.
Round: $11.7 million BTC purchase
Investors: Public market investors
Lion Group Holding Ltd.
The Pitch: Lion Group Holding Ltd. (Nasdaq: LGHL) announced a $10 million private placement, with $8 million of net proceeds earmarked to buy Bitcoin for its corporate treasury.
Round: $10 million PIPE
Investors: Undisclosed
M&A Activity
Kraken acquired Backed
Kraken will acquireBacked Finance, the issuer of xStocks, to unify tokenized equity issuance, trading, and settlement within its infrastructure. Backed will integrate into Kraken as xStocks continues to scale past $10 billion in cumulative volume. The deal enhances Kraken’s compliance and issuance capabilities, deepens product integrations, including with its global money app, and expands support for more than 60 tokenized equities and ETFs across multiple chains. It also broadens distribution and multichain liquidity as Kraken accelerates its strategy for onchain real-world assets, building on prior acquisitions of Breakout, Small Exchange, and NinjaTrader.
Galaxy acquired Alluvial
GalaxyacquiredAlluvial Finance, the former development organization behind Liquid Collective, becoming the protocol’s new Development Company and expanding its institutional liquid staking capabilities. The deal brings Liquid Collective’s engineering talent, staking management system, and integration tooling into Galaxy’s platform. Liquid Collective has grown to about $1 billion in staked assets in 2025, reflecting rising institutional demand for compliant liquid staking. With full responsibility for protocol development, Galaxy aims to broaden validator participation and global institutional access, while Liquid Collective continues operating independently under The Liquid Foundation.
Solmate acquired RockawayX
Solmate signed a non-binding term sheet to acquireRockawayX in an all-stock transaction that would create an institutional crypto platform with more than $2 billion in combined AUM and third-party stake. The combined entity would continue trading under the SLMT ticker, with Solmate CEO Marco Santori leading the unified business and RockawayX CEO Viktor Fischer becoming Executive Chairman. The acquisition integrates Solana-focused infrastructure, onchain liquidity services, and asset management under one platform, combining RockawayX’s validator network, solver operations, and credit capabilities with Solmate’s expanding UAE-based staking and transaction-ordering footprint.
Newly Launched Funds
Further x 3iQ Alpha Digital Fund – $100M
Further and 3iQlaunched the Further x 3iQ Alpha Digital Fund, a $100 million market-neutral, multi-strategy vehicle offering institutionally risk-managed exposure to liquid digital assets. The fund targets double-digit returns and includes a Bitcoin share class that enables subscription and compounding in BTC while maintaining full long exposure. Seeded by institutional, family office, and sovereign capital, the fund is designed to meet rigorous institutional standards and expand sovereign-backed participation in digital assets. The partnership combines Further’s institutional investment platform with 3iQ’s experience in regulated digital-asset products to provide a scalable, risk-managed entry point for sophisticated allocators.
Had a debate over whether L1s are overvalued on current revenue or undervalued as exponential infrastructure, with Santiago urging app-level fundamentals and Haseeb defending long-term network effects. Jason Choi (Tangent) warned that gambling-heavy usage, combined with limited talent and mainstream buy-in, makes outsized L1 re-rating scenarios less likely.
Detailed three disputes stalling the Senate's market structure bill: banks' push to ban stablecoin yields, Democrats' demands for presidential family conflict rules, and TradFi's bid to regulate DeFi developers as intermediaries.
Argued that latent capital markets (markets with existing unmet demand but unserved by traditional infrastructure) stand to benefit most from tokenization's promise of cheaper, faster, more accessible real-world asset products.
Quick Recap
Total Deals: 42
Total Raised: $165M
Digital Asset Treasuries: $21.7M
Acquisitions: 5
Newly Launched Funds: $100M
That’s a wrap for this week’s Crypto Venture Weekly. Thanks for tuning in, and see you next week!
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Jake is a Research Analyst on the Protocol Research team. He previously worked as an Investment Analyst at an AI-driven crypto research platform and as a Venture Analyst at a digital assets venture fund. He advised multiple RWA tokenization projects on tokenomics. Jake graduated from the University of Southern California, where he studied Philosophy and Finance.
Alice is a Research Analyst on the Protocol Services team. She previously worked as a Research Analyst at The Block and was an Investment Intern at Variant Fund. Alice graduated from Northwestern University, where she studied Economics.
Jake is a Research Analyst on the Protocol Research team. He previously worked as an Investment Analyst at an AI-driven crypto research platform and as a Venture Analyst at a digital assets venture fund. He advised multiple RWA tokenization projects on tokenomics. Jake graduated from the University of Southern California, where he studied Philosophy and Finance.
Alice is a Research Analyst on the Protocol Services team. She previously worked as a Research Analyst at The Block and was an Investment Intern at Variant Fund. Alice graduated from Northwestern University, where she studied Economics.
