Cryptocurrency projects have raised more than $100 billion in the past 10 years

In just 10 years, crypto startups have successfully raised more than $100 billion in capital, with the majority of capital raised since the COVID-19 pandemic.

Since June 2014, cryptocurrency startups have attracted more than $100 billion in investment capital, marking an important milestone in the past decade.

According to data from DefiLlama as of June 16, 2024, the total capital raised for crypto projects has reached 101.35 billion USD.

Monthly capital raising amount of crypto projects. Source: DefiLlama (June 17, 2024)

Compared to May 2014, cryptocurrency startups only received a mere 17.14 million USD in capital. However, after only 10 years, the amount of capital raised in May 2024 has skyrocketed to 280.25 million USD, much higher than a decade earlier.

The most explosive time starts from late 2021 to early 2022, after the COVID-19 pandemic broke out. This is the golden time for typical crypto companies such as Yuga-Labs, Consensys and Polygon when all three have completed their capital raising rounds with a value of up to 450 million USD.

Cryptocurrency startups recorded a record of capital raising with an amount of more than 7.08 billion USD in November 2021, breaking the previous record in October 2021, when there was 3.67 billion USD. USD capital mobilized.

The first quarter of 2024 saw cryptocurrency projects raise more than $2.49 billion. Including capital calls that made the community excited, such as EigenLayer calling for 100 million USD from a16z, Paradigm leading the capital call round of 225 million USD from Layer-1 Monad, Layer-1 Berachain calling for 69 million USD.

The valuation of cryptocurrency projects in 2024 also witnessed a strong recovery with billion-dollar valuation deals such as Farcaster or Humanity Protocol. This is a big step forward compared to 2023, the year with the worst capital mobilization results since the crypto market fell into a downtrend cycle. However, this still stands out with huge investment deals like LayerZero, Scroll or EigenLayer.

The interest rate issue will continue to be a challenge for venture capital funds to find and pour capital into startups in the future. This reflects an increasingly complex cryptocurrency market, where macroeconomic factors and market sentiment both influence funds' investment decisions.