If crypto investments would be used as a metric to gauge if crypto has finally gone mainstream, then one could argue that 2021 was the year that the industry finally gained acceptance from both investors and the general public.
Investors pour $30 billion into the crypto space
According to available data from PitchBook, as of December 15, VCs have invested around $30 billion into the crypto industry in this year alone. The data revealed that ATH of crypto investments was in 2018 when investors poured $8 billion into the space. This means that investors have invested almost 4-times of what they did in 2018 into the space.
Per Bloomberg, the surge in crypto investments could be tied to the several new innovations that can now be found in the crypto space. The growth of NFTs, DeFi, Web 3.0, alongside others have made the space a very attractive option for investors.
This view was shared by PitchBook’s analyst Rob Le who said that “Investors are funding anything and everything.” The general partner at Blockchain Capital LLC, Spencer Bogart, also referenced the growth in those crypto niches adding that investors now think that they “don’t have enough exposure to the industry.”
While crypto growth and investments have been commendable this year, the general consensus amongst experts in the industry is that we are just scratching the surface as the space has been predicted to have as many as 1 billion users in the next 5 years.
Who is investing? Where are they investing?
Data from PicthBook reveals that the top venture capital investors in the crypto industry include Coinbase Ventures which has closed around 68 deals this year, Digital Currency Group with 58 deals, and Polychain Capital with 44 deals. Other VCs that make up the top 5 include Pantera Capital and Andreessen Horowitz with 43 and 40 deals respectively.
These investors participated in some notable funding rounds like that of FTX, a crypto derivatives exchange that raised $1 billion in its Series B funding round in July and New York Digital Investment Group who also raised $1 billion recently.
Other notable crypto funding rounds include Robinhood, Dapper Labs, and MoonPay, to name but a few.
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