Crypto Venture Weekly: November 10-14, 2025

Introduction

12 projects raised $136 million this week, led by Lighter ($68M) and LISA ($12M), while Strive, VCI Global, Cypherpunk, Upexi, and Strategy collectively deployed over $412 million into digital asset treasury positions. Public, Rain, Exodus, and RISE announced acquisitions across crypto-IRA infrastructure, loyalty and payments, Latin American merchant services, and onchain orderbooks, alongside Dromos Labs’ consolidation of Aerodrome and Velodrome into a unified DEX. Nick Matthew examined the rise of stablecoin-first neobanks, Scott Duke Kominers detailed how arcade tokens can anchor onchain marketplace design, and Karthik Senthil outlined a crypto-coordinated crowdsourced training stack for AI. Here’s the breakdown of this week’s top deals and insights.

Key Highlights

• Notable Deals: Lighter ($68M), LISA ($12M), Acurast ($11M), Seismic ($10M), Self ($9M), Curvance ($4M), Shodai Network ($2.5M), and Takadao ($1.5M).
• Digital Asset Treasuries: Strive ($162M for BTC), VCI Global ($100M for OOB), Cypherpunk Technologies ($50M for ZEC), Upexi ($50M for stock buybacks), and Strategy ($49.9M for BTC).
• M&A Activity: Public acquired Alto’s crypto IRA business, Rain acquired Uptop, Aerodrome merged with Velodrome, Exodus acquired Grateful, and RISE acquired BSX Labs.
• VC CT: Nick Matthew examined the emergence of stablecoin-first neobanks and their revenue potential; Scott Duke Kominers outlined how arcade tokens can underpin onchain marketplace economies; and Karthik Senthil detailed how crypto-coordinated networks could enable a crowdsourced AI training stack.

Notable Deals

12 projects collectively raised $136 million this week. Here are the eight that stood out:

Lighter

• The Pitch: Ethereum-based ZK Rollup perpetual-futures exchange
• Round: $68 million Funding Round at a $1.5 billion valuation
• Investors: Led by Founders Fund and Ribbit Capital, with participation from Haun Ventures, Robinhood, and more

LISA

• The Pitch: An AI agent that uses LLM techniques to analyze smart‑contract code
• Round: $12 million funding
• Investors: NGC Ventures, Signum Capital, LongHash Ventures, UOB Venture Management, and more

Acurast

• The Pitch: Decentralized compute network powered by smartphones
• Round: $11 million funding
• Investors: CoinList, Tezos Foundation, Web3 Foundation, Scytale Digital, Peaq, and more

Seismic

• The Pitch: An encrypted blockchain platform that restructures the open-source blockchain stack around secure hardware
• Round: $10 million funding
• Investors: Led by a16z crypto with participation from Polychain Capital, Amber Group, TrueBridge, dao5, and LayerZero

Self

• The Pitch: Protocol for fully private, verifiable identity
• Round: $9 million Seed
• Investors: Sandeep Nailwal, Greenfield Capital, Sreeram Kannan, Julien Bouteloup, Hart Lambur, and more

Curvance

• The Pitch: DeFi lending protocol simplifying access to institutional-grade yield
• Round: $4 million Strategic
• Investors: Led by Primal Capital and F-Prime Capital, with participation from GSR, Flowdesk, Auros Global, and more

Shodai Network

• The Pitch: Building a founder network and fundraising-support platform
• Round: $2.5 million Seed
• Investors: Consensys Mesh, Consensys, and Joseph Lubin

Takadao

• The Pitch: Platform for bankless financial alternatives based in Riyadh and Singapore
• Round: $1.5 million Seed
• Investors: Draper Associates, Adaverse, Istari Ventures, Wahed Ventures, Hasan VC, and more

Digital Asset Treasuries

Strive

• The Pitch: Strive acquired 1,567 BTC (~$162 million) at an average price of $103,315, bringing total holdings to 7,525 BTC.
• Round: $162 million Bitcoin purchase
• Investors: Vivek Ramaswamy, Peter Thiel, JD Vance, Bill Ackman, and more

VCI Global

• The Pitch: VCI Global (Nasdaq: VCIG) acquired $100 million in OOB tokens and was appointed Treasury Manager of the OOB Foundation, partnering with OOBIT, where Tether is the largest shareholder.
• Round: $100 million OOB token acquisition
• Investors: Tether, Anatoly Yakovenko, CMCC Global, 468 Capital, and others

Cypherpunk

• The Pitch: Leap Therapeutics (Nasdaq: LPTX) rebranded as Cypherpunk Technologies and unveiled a $50 million Zcash (ZEC) treasury strategy, purchasing 203,775 ZEC at an average price of $245.37 per coin.
• Round: $50 million Zcash private placement purchase
• Investors: Led by Winklevoss Capital, with participation from private investors

Upexi

• The Pitch: Upexi (Nasdaq: UPXI), a Solana-focused DAT and consumer brands company, authorized a $50 million share repurchase program to buy back its outstanding common stock.
• Round: $50 million share repurchase program
• Investors: Public market investors

Strategy

• The Pitch: Strategy Inc (Nasdaq: MSTR) acquired 487 BTC (~$49.9 million) at an average price of $102,557 per Bitcoin, bringing total holdings to 641,692 BTC (~$67.8 billion).
• Round: $49.9 million Bitcoin purchase via at-the-market offering
• Investors: Public market investors

M&A Activity

Public acquired Alto

Public acquired Alto’s crypto IRA business for $65 million in cash and stock, adding roughly $600 million in retirement-focused digital asset accounts to its platform as it expands toward older, upmarket investors. The deal brings one of the few crypto IRA providers directly into a retail brokerage environment, reflecting growing demand for tax-advantaged long-term crypto exposure. Public plans to integrate Alto’s crypto accounts in 2026, with Alto remaining a service provider while continuing to operate its non-crypto alternative asset business independently.

Rain acquired Uptop

Rain acquired Uptop, an onchain rewards platform that converts everyday card purchases into loyalty across categories such as retail, entertainment, travel, and dining. The acquisition expands Rain’s enterprise-grade stablecoin payments infrastructure by integrating rewards into its full-stack offering, which includes on-ramps, wallets, Visa-enabled cards, off-ramps, and payouts. By incorporating Uptop’s Avalanche-based technology and card-linked rewards system, Rain enables partners to launch branded cards and wallets with built-in loyalty programs. Uptop will continue to operate as an independent brand under Rain.

Aerodrome merged with Velodrome

Dromos Labs announced that Aerodrome on Base and Velodrome on Optimism will merge into Aero, a unified DEX architecture designed to consolidate liquidity and standardize its trading infrastructure across chains. Aerodrome, currently Base’s leading exchange by volume and fees, will serve as the central hub, while Aero extends execution and liquidity to Ethereum mainnet and Circle’s Arc beginning in Q2 2026. The overhaul introduces METADEX03, a dual-engine system that reduces value leakage and routes all protocol revenue to users, including Slipstream V3, which internalizes MEV through an embedded auction mechanism. Under the token migration plan, Aerodrome holders will receive 94.5% of the new AERO token supply and Velodrome holders 5.55%.

Exodus acquired Grateful

Exodus acquired Grateful, a Uruguay-based stablecoin payments orchestrator, to expand its merchant services footprint across Latin America and strengthen its stablecoin-based payments infrastructure. Grateful provides a blockchain-native payments stack for small businesses and independent workers, offering merchant dashboards, wallet-to-wallet payments, QR-based point-of-sale tools, ecommerce integrations, and instant settlement with lower fees and yield-bearing balances.

RISE acquired BSX Labs

RISE acquired BSX Labs, developer of the BSX perpetuals exchange on Base, to accelerate its roadmap for fully onchain, synchronously composable orderbook infrastructure. BSX processed more than $15 billion in cumulative trading volume, and its hybrid orderbook architecture will help RISE build high-performance EVM-based primitives. As part of the deal, 1.5% of RISE’s forthcoming token supply will be allocated to BSX token holders through an airdrop. BSX’s exchange will wind down, while the team transitions to RISE to develop native orderbook products.

VC CT: What VCs are saying on Crypto Twitter

Nick Matthew (Standard Crypto)

• Explored the rise of stablecoin-first neobanks, arguing that as stablecoin supply scales toward $1 trillion, crypto-native financial platforms will capture billions in revenue by serving underbanked users.

Scott Duke Kominers (a16z crypto)

• Explained arcade tokens, non-speculative digital currencies for applications, arguing they can power loyalty systems, manage internal economies, and drive network effects as a foundational primitive for onchain marketplaces.

Karthik Senthil (Lattice Capital)

• Introduced the crowdsourced training stack, where crypto-coordinated networks replace capital-intensive AI labs for scaling and fine-tuning models.

Quick Recap

• Total Deals: 12
• Total Raised: $136M
• Digital Asset Treasuries: $412M
• Acquisitions: 7
• Newly Launched Funds: 0

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

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