From April 18 to April 25, 2026, the cryptocurrency sector recorded 16 funding rounds, of which 12 disclosed the amounts of raised investments. In total, these companies received $222 million, indicating active venture capital activity despite the overall cautious sentiment among investors.
This is reported by Business • Media
Key deals of the week: rescue of Drift Protocol and venture activity
The largest deal was the provision of a credit line, grant, and loans to Drift Protocol amounting to up to $150 million. This financial support was provided to the project by Tether, the issuer of the USDT stablecoin, to compensate users for losses following a hacker attack on the platform in early April this year.
“Tether, the issuer of USDT, offered the project assistance in compensating users for losses after the hack in early April 2026. This involves providing up to $150 million in the form of a credit line, grant, and loans to market makers.”
During the reporting week, there were 12 deals in the venture segment with disclosed amounts. Among the most notable:
- JPYC — $17.6 million: The issuer of a stablecoin pegged to the Japanese yen raised funds from SBI Investments, Metaplanet Inc, NCB Venture Capital Co, TechMira Holdings, Canal Ventures, and Hokkaido Bank. The investments will be directed towards the development of new systems, applications, and team expansion.
- Valour — $11 million: The provider of exchange-traded products for crypto assets received funding in two deals — $10 million for the ETP Valour Hedera (HBAR) on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and $1 million in Valour Hedera SEK on the Swedish Spotlight Exchange.
- BetHog — $10 million: The project in the field of cryptocurrency sports betting raised funds from leading venture funds for the development of the Sentient Studios platform.
- Hata — $8 million: The Malaysian digital asset exchange received investments to enhance liquidity, develop new products, and expand its user base. The round was led by Bybit.
- KAIO — $8 million: Developers of the institutional RWA protocol raised capital from Tether, Laser Digital, Further, and Systemic Ventures.
- Cluster Protocol — $5 million: The decentralized platform for developing and training artificial intelligence received support from dao5, Mapleblock Capital, Paper Ventures, and JPEG Trading to scale its product portfolio.
- BlockInvest — $4.72 million: The platform for tokenizing real assets raised funds from UniCredit, which will allow for the integration of solutions into banking processes.
- RealGo — $3.5 million: The creators of a Web3 game based on meme coins received investments from Animoca Brands, X21 Digital, and other strategic partners.
- ILITY Network — $2 million: A private L1 blockchain for data verification received funding from Animoca Brands and DuckDAO for further product development.
- Arkonix — $1.09 million: An infrastructure project for managing on-chain yield conducted a closed round without disclosing details.
- Hourglass — $1.08 million: Developers of a DeFi application for trading locked assets also raised investments without specifying details of their use.
Additionally, several projects reported raising funding without disclosing specific amounts. The DeFi protocol 3F received support from GSR Investments, Maven 11 Capital, Susquehanna International Group, Gate Ventures, F-Prime Capital, Pivot Global, Komorebi Collective, Felix Lutsch, and Metalayer Ventures. The HQLAx platform announced strategic investments from Broadridge and Digital Asset for the development of its technological platform and integration with the Canton network. TruScholar, which focuses on issuing and verifying digital certificates, also received additional capital for scaling its platform.
Other market events: mergers, acquisitions, and sector dynamics
No new token sales or deals in the categories of accelerators, grants, and DAO funding were recorded during the week.
At the same time, one significant M&A deal occurred: DV8 acquired the custodial platform RakkaR Digital. This will enable DV8 to enter the digital asset market with a focus on institutional infrastructure.
Among investors, Animoca Brands showed the most activity, participating in several deals. Other investors limited themselves to single investments.
This week, the DeFi sector remained the focus of the market, while CeFi, blockchain infrastructure, various services, and GameFi projects also received attention from investors.
In comparison, last week saw 19 deals with a total investment volume of $1.1 billion, among which the main ones were the acquisition of Bitnomial for $550 million and an investment of $200 million in Kraken.