Weekly Crypto Funding: 18 Deals, $344M+ Raised — Digital Asset’s Canton Network Investor Round $50M with BNY Mellon & Nasdaq
Last week (Dec 1–7) the blockchain sector recorded 18 public funding events totaling over $344 million. Major highlights include: Digital Asset Holdings, developer of the Canton Network, raised $50 million with strategic investors including BNY Mellon, Nasdaq, S&P Global and iCapital. Antithesis, an Ethereum-focused stress-testing tool, closed a $105 million Series A led by Jane Street. Portal to Bitcoin secured $25 million to build an atomicized OTC cross-chain settlement platform; Ostium — a decentralized exchange for RWA perpetuals — raised $20 million (Series A) led by General Catalyst and Jump Trading. Other notable rounds: Zoo Finance $8M (strategic), Axis $5M (market-neutral on-chain yield), Altura $4M, N3XT $72M total across rounds, Fin $17M (Pantera-led stablecoin payments), Bitstack $15M (A-round). Two listed companies (Lion Group, Hamak Strategy) completed financing earmarked partly for BTC treasury purchases. Sectors seeing activity: DeFi (7 deals), infrastructure & tools (3), Web3+AI (2), centralized finance (3), other Web3 apps (3). For traders, the report signals continued institutional and infrastructure capital inflows — notable for projects building RWA, on-chain yield, BTC-native interoperability and testing/security tooling. Key stats and names appear repeatedly across the ecosystem: Digital Asset (Canton Network), Antithesis, Portal to Bitcoin, Ostium, Zoo Finance, Axis, N3XT, Fin, Bitstack.
Bullish
The funding wave across 18 deals totalling $344M+ is bullish for crypto markets because it indicates sustained institutional and venture capital commitment to infrastructure, RWA tokenization, on-chain yield products and BTC-native interoperability. Large rounds — notably Digital Asset’s $50M with BNY Mellon and Nasdaq participation, Antithesis’s $105M Series A, and Portal to Bitcoin’s $25M — strengthen core infrastructure and reduce execution risk for institutional entrants. Historically, sizable infrastructure and institutional-focused funding rounds precede increased adoption and liquidity (examples: Fireblocks, ConsenSys, and Chainalysis growth phases), which can support higher valuations for related tokens and service providers. Short-term effects: selective rallies in tokens and equities tied to funded projects, increased search and speculative interest in RWA, on-chain yield and BTC-bridge tokens; markets may already price in these positives, so immediate upside could be muted. Long-term effects: improved infrastructure, compliance and institutional tooling lower barriers to entry, likely increasing institutional capital allocation to crypto and RWA products — supportive of a prolonged bullish trend for crypto assets linked to these sectors. Risks: macro conditions, regulatory setbacks, or execution failures at funded firms could temper impact. Overall, net effect favors bullish sentiment, especially for infrastructure, RWA, and BTC interoperability plays.