Crypto Venture Weekly: Jan. 19-23, 2026

Introduction

22 projects raised $458 million this week, led by BitGo’s $213 million IPO, alongside sizable rounds from Superstate ($82.5M), Pomelo ($55M), and Zebedee ($40M), while Strategy added $2.13 billion in Bitcoin to its digital asset treasury. M&A activity accelerated with Neynar acquiring Farcaster, Chainlink acquiring Atlas, and RedStone acquiring Security Token Market and the TokenizeThis RWA summit, as Solayer and Pump.fun launched new ecosystem funds totaling $38 million. On Crypto Twitter, Ryan Watkins pointed to reset valuations and improving regulation as setting up a secular growth phase, Simon Dedic highlighted VC capitulation toward tokens as both a trust crisis and potential bottom, and Electric Capital outlined 26 user-owned technology opportunities driven by AI and shifting ownership models.

Key Highlights

• Notable Deals: BitGo ($213M), Superstate ($82.5M), Pomelo ($55M), Zebedee ($40M), River ($12M), Cork Protocol ($5.5M), Bitway ($4.44M), and HyperLend ($1.7M).
• Digital Asset Treasuries: Strategy ($2.13 billion for BTC).
• M&A Activity: Neynar acquired Farcaster, Chainlink acquired Atlas, and RedStone acquired Security Token Market and the TokenizeThis RWA summit.
• New Funds: Solana Ecosystem Fund ($35M) and Pump Fund ($3M) launched.
• VC CT: Ryan Watkins framed reset crypto valuations and improving regulation as setting up a secular growth phase; Simon Dedic highlighted VC capitulation toward tokens as both a trust crisis and a potential cyclical bottom; and Electric Capital mapped 26 user-owned technology opportunities driven by AI, declining institutional trust, and shifting ownership models.

Notable Deals

22 projects collectively raised $458 million this week. Here are the eight that stood out:

BitGo

• The Pitch: Provides institutional-grade crypto custody services
• Round: $213 million IPO at a $2.08 billion valuation
• Investors: YZi Labs and public market investors

Superstate

• The Pitch: Onchain equity issuance infrastructure
• Round: $82.5 million Series B
• Investors: Led by Distributed Global and Bain Capital Crypto, with participation from ParaFi Capital, 1kx, Hypersphere Ventures, Brevan Howard, Haun Ventures, Galaxy Digital, and more

Pomelo

• The Pitch: Argentinian-based fintech providing infra for issuing, processing, and managing card payments
• Round: $55 million Series C
• Investors: Led by Insight Partners and Kaszek Ventures, with participation from Index Ventures, Endeavor Catalyst, S32, and more

Zebedee

• The Pitch: Bitcoin payments startup building blockchain payments rails for video games
• Round: $40 million Series C
• Investors: Led by Blockstream

River

• The Pitch: Chain abstraction stablecoin system that connects assets, liquidity, and yield across multiple chains
• Round: $12 million Strategic
• Investors: Led by Justin Sun with participation from Spartan Group, Maelstrom, and more

Cork Protocol

• The Pitch: Onchain infrastructure that tokenizes, prices, and trades risk in RWAs
• Round: $5.5 million Seed
• Investors: Led by a16z crypto and Road Capital, with participation from IDEO Colab Ventures, WAGMI Ventures, Gate Labs, Stake Capital Group, and more

Bitway

• The Pitch: DeFi platform offering onchain wealth management and a payments-focused L1
• Round: $4.44 million Seed
• Investors: Led by TRON DAO Ventures with participation from HTX Ventures

HyperLend

• The Pitch: Lending platform on Hyperliquid EVM
• Round: $1.7 million funding
• Investors: RockawayX, No Limit Holdings, Dewhales Capital, Duplicate Capital, and more

Digital Asset Treasuries

Strategy

• The Pitch: Strategy (Nasdaq: MSTR) purchased 22,305 BTC (~$2.13 billion) at an average price of ~$95,284 per coin, marking its largest weekly bitcoin acquisition since November 2024 and the fifth largest in the company’s history. This acquisition brings the company's total holdings to 709,715 BTC, worth approximately $53.92 billion.
• Round: ~$2.13 billion Bitcoin purchase
• Investors: Public market investors

M&A Activity

Neynar acquired Farcaster

Neynar acquired Farcaster, assuming ownership of the protocol contracts, core code repositories, the Farcaster client, and Clanker, and will be responsible for ongoing maintenance and development. The transaction transitions stewardship from the Merkle team after five years of operation, with several original contributors stepping back from day-to-day involvement. As one of Farcaster’s earliest clients and a core infrastructure provider powering much of the developer ecosystem, Neynar is positioned to vertically integrate protocol, client, and tooling under a builder-first strategy. The acquisition consolidates Farcaster’s ecosystem under a single operator and signals a strategic reset focused on improving developer monetization, infrastructure reliability, and long-term network sustainability.

Chainlink acquired Atlas by FastLane

Chainlink acquired the Atlas IP and onboarded key personnel from FastLane, bringing a production-proven onchain order flow and value recapture system under the Chainlink standard. Atlas, which enables DeFi protocols such as Compound and Venus to run application-specific order flow auctions for liquidations, will now exclusively support Chainlink SVR. The acquisition accelerates SVR’s multichain expansion beyond Ethereum, with deployments now live on Arbitrum, Base, BNB Chain, and HyperEVM, while providing a streamlined migration path for existing Atlas users.

RedStone acquired Security Token Market and the TokenizeThis conference

RedStone acquired Security Token Market (STM) and the TokenizeThis RWA summit, expanding its oracle business beyond price feeds into comprehensive institutional-grade RWA data and market intelligence. The acquisition adds STM’s long-running dataset covering 800+ tokenized securities across equities, real estate, debt, and funds, representing more than $60 billion in market cap, while bringing TokenizeThis under RedStone’s ownership as its flagship institutional RWA conference in New York.

Newly Launched Funds

Solayer Ecosystem Fund – $35M

Solayer launched a $35 million ecosystem fund to support early- and growth-stage teams building high-throughput, revenue-driven applications on infiniSVM, its Solana Virtual Machine-compatible L1. The fund targets real-time onchain products that benefit from low latency and high finality, with a focus on DeFi, consumer applications, payments, and AI-driven systems that execute blockchain transactions. Building on the Solayer Accel program, the initiative combines capital with technical support, infrastructure access, and go-to-market resources, and has already backed projects including buff.trade, DoxX, and Spout Finance.

Pump Fund – $3M

Pump.fun launched Pump Fund, an ecosystem initiative designed to support early-stage projects building on its token-launch platform through market-driven validation rather than traditional VC selection. The fund’s first program is the BiP Hackathon, which will back 12 teams with $250,000 investments at a $10 million valuation, alongside mentorship from Pump.fun’s founders and platform support. Projects are required to launch a token, retain at least 10% of supply, and build in public, with funding decisions informed by organic user traction and perceived long-term viability rather than judge-led evaluation.

VC CT: What VCs are saying on Crypto Twitter

Ryan Watkins (Syncracy Capital)

• Argued that crypto valuations have reset after overextended 2021 expectations, with improving regulation, maturing use cases, and stronger value capture positioning leading projects for a secular growth phase while weaker tokens are likely to be displaced.

Simon Dedic (Moonrock Capital)

• Observed that extreme pessimism among veteran crypto VCs toward token investing reflects a breakdown in trust driven by extractive token launches, while arguing this capitulation may signal a cyclical bottom and a renewed need for long-term alignment and credibility.

Electric Capital

• Outlined 26 investment opportunities centered on user-owned technology spanning AI agents, fintech and DeFi, crypto primitives, and virtual worlds, positioning declining institutional trust and lower AI-driven build costs as catalysts for user control, privacy, and ownership in 2026.

Quick Recap

• Total Deals: 22
• Total Raised: $458M
• Digital Asset Treasuries: $2.13B
• Acquisitions: 4
• Newly Launched Funds: $38M

That’s a wrap for this week’s Crypto Venture Weekly. Thanks for tuning in, and see you next week!

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