BlockBeats news, on May 12, the cryptocurrency funding market showed significant recovery since April, with total fundraising reaching approximately $2.359 billion, primarily driven by a few large transactions.
In the prediction markets sector, Kalshi emerged as the standout with a single funding round of $1 billion, driving the sector’s total funding above $1 billion. Other funding rounds in the prediction markets sector include $6 million for startup XO Market and $5 million for live prediction market Pumpcade in its seed round.
VC fundraising remains strong, with Haun Ventures closing a $1 billion new fund and expanding its investment scope to include AI agents. Meanwhile, Korean crypto venture firm Hashed Ventures raised $2.2 million during the same period.
The stablecoin and payment infrastructure sector performed strongly, raising a total of approximately $128 million. Payment infrastructure company Fun raised $72 million, while Latin American digital wallet platform Belo raised $14 million. Paxos Labs’ $12 million funding round attracted significant market attention, led by long-standing crypto venture firm Blockchain Capital, with participation from Robot Ventures, family office Maelstrom, and DeFi development company Uniswap Labs.
The DeFi and RWA sectors raised approximately $88 million, with Galaxy Digital leading a $20 million investment in the credit market platform Fence—the largest funding in the sector. Other notable investments include $17 million for OpenTrade, an on-chain RWA lending and stablecoin project; $3.75 million for the lending platform Votre; and $8 million for the asset tokenization company KAIO.
Funding in the AI and crypto intersection sector was relatively small, totaling $24 million. Balcony, an AI and blockchain-based land registry platform, raised $12.7 million; Fere AI, an AI-powered digital asset trading agent platform, raised $1.3 million; and AlphaNet, an AI quantitative trading platform, raised $10 million.