More than $100 billion has been raised for cryptocurrency startups since the end of May 2014.
Looking back, there have been highs and lows amid regulatory uncertainty and market volatility. But the past four years have seen both the ceiling and floor raised despite continuing peaks and troughs.
Data sourced from TVL aggregator DefiLlama shows that as of June 16, 2024, the total funding recorded for the cryptocurrency industry sits at $101.35 billion. Way back in May of 2014, just five years after Bitcoin was created (and still a year out from Ethereum’s launch), the first month of cryptocurrency startup funding on record was for a comparatively paltry $17.14 million.
Fast forward 10 years to May 2024, and industry funding hit $280.25 million for the month — substantially higher than a decade ago but well short of the previous month’s figure of $777.11 million.
Cryptocurrency startup funding reached its zenith in October of 2021 with more than $7 billion dollars raised. No other month comes close as February of 2022’s $3.67 billion marks the second highest on record.
Research from as recent as 2023 shows that nearly half of all cryptocurrency funding comes from investors in the United States. The rest is split up between a number of countries with the United Kingdom (7.7%) and Singapore (5.7%) taking second and third place, according to figures from Q2 of 2023.
As Cointelegraph recently reported, a series of high-profile funding deals have manifested during the period between late 2023 and the first half of 2024.
Both Together.AI and cross-chain protocol Wormhole raised investments in the amount of $225 million in late 2023 while open-source cloud storage firm Totter and Eigenlayer added $101 million and $100 million respectively.
Additional high value raises included Swan Bitcoin’s raise of $165 million and Blockchain.com’s $110 million.
Related: Spot Ethereum ETFs may begin trading by July 2 — Bloomberg analyst