If you missed it, Messari published its State of Crypto Fundraising report for Q2 2025. This pro report covers Q2's fundraising deals, accelerators, M&As, newly launched funds, top investors, and more. Now, back to your regularly scheduled programming.
19 projects raised $202 million this week, led by KUN ($50M) and Spiko ($22M), while Talos, dYdX, and Ondo Finance made notable acquisitions to expand their infrastructure and product offerings. Sonnet BioTherapeutics merged with Rorschach I LLC to launch a publicly traded crypto treasury vehicle holding HYPE tokens, and Hiroki Kotabe, Pranav Garimidi, and Tom Dunleavy offered perspectives on Ethereum’s future, MEV, and price trajectories. Here’s the breakdown of this week’s top deals and insights.
Ondo FinanceacquiredStrangelove, a blockchain infrastructure firm known for its work on interoperability protocols, SDK frameworks, and custom chain deployments. The deal enhances Ondo’s technical depth as it builds a full-stack platform for tokenized RWAs, combining asset issuance, protocol design, and blockchain development. Strangelove CEO Jack Zampolin will join Ondo as VP of Product, bringing expertise across Layer-1 ecosystems to accelerate the launch of Ondo’s forthcoming blockchain.
Sonnet BioTherapeutics merged with Rorschach I LLC
Nasdaq-listed Sonnet BioTherapeuticsannounced a merger with Rorschach I LLC, a newly formed entity backed by affiliates of Atlas Merchant Capital and Paradigm, to form Hyperliquid Strategies, Inc., a public crypto treasury company focused on acquiring and holding HYPE tokens. The combined entity is expected to launch with $305 million in cash and 12.6 million HYPE tokens, totaling an estimated $888 million in value. Upon closing, Hyperliquid Strategies will trade on Nasdaq under a new ticker and maintain one of the largest strategic reserves of HYPE. In addition to Paradigm, the deal includes backing from Galaxy Digital, Pantera Capital, D1 Capital, Republic Digital, and 683 Capital, positioning the new company as a key institutional access point to the Hyperliquid ecosystem.
Talos acquired Coin Metrics
TalosacquiredCoin Metrics, a provider of blockchain data and index solutions, in a $100 million deal backed by Citi, marking one of the largest M&A transactions in the sector this year. The acquisition brings together Talos’s institutional trading infrastructure with Coin Metrics’s data analytics capabilities to create a unified platform for price discovery, risk management, and compliance. Coin Metrics will continue operating independently, while its founder, Nic Carter, will remain as chairman.
dYdX Acquires Pocket Protector
dYdXacquiredPocket Protector, a Telegram-native trading app known for its social-first interface and rapid user growth, to strengthen its core perpetuals product and accelerate its go-to-market strategy. The acquisition brings Pocket Protector’s six-person team, led by Eddie Zhang and Kaiser Kinbote, into dYdX, with Zhang joining as President and Kinbote as Head of Growth. Pocket Protector reached over $1 billion in annualized volume and 50,000 users within its first year, and its underlying technology will be integrated into the dYdX product suite to support a broader expansion in user experience and trading functionality.
Outlined Ethereum’s evolving base-layer roadmap and predicted that by 2030, rollups will consolidate toward two dominant archetypes: high-throughput performance rollups and deeply aligned rollups tightly integrated with Ethereum’s consensus and settlement layers.
Analyzed the limitations of encrypted mempools as a solution to MEV, concluding that while promising in theory, practical, economic, and metadata-based challenges make them insufficient as a standalone fix.
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.
