Weekly Crypto Funding: 15 Deals, Based Raises $11.5M A Round Led by Pantera
Last week (Feb 23–Mar 1) saw 15 disclosed blockchain funding events totaling over $129 million. Notable deals: Based, a Web trading and payments app built on Hyperliquid, closed a $11.5M Series A led by Pantera Capital with participation from Coinbase Ventures, Wintermute Ventures and Karatage; the round included equity and token warrants. t54 Labs, an AI-agent trust infrastructure provider, raised $5M seed (led by Anagram/PL Capital/Franklin Templeton; Ripple among investors) for identity, real-time risk and settlement tools for autonomous AI agents. World Bank’s IFC invested ~$40M into Malaysian digital infrastructure provider Zetrix AI to expand regional digital-ID and blockchain services. STS Digital, an institutional crypto options platform, raised $30M led by CMT Digital. Other raises: Apyx (stablecoin protocol) received strategic investment from DeFi Development (Solana treasury firm); Finrob raised $3.9M seed for AI-native research tools; PlutonAI $2.7M seed; manadia $7M; Bluprynt $4.25M; Rhythmic $4M; prediction-market projects TBD $3M, Kash $2M, Fireplace $1.5M. Tether made a strategic investment in internet marketplace Whop (reports suggest $200M). OpenAI announced a separate $110B financing at a $730B valuation (excluded from totals). Overall themes: strong investor appetite for Web3+AI, prediction markets, stablecoin rails and infrastructure. For traders: key signals include continued institutional capital into crypto infrastructure and stablecoin/payment rails, rising investor interest in AI-agent tooling tied to blockchain, and fresh capital in Solana-linked projects and prediction markets — developments that may support liquidity, product expansion and on-chain activity in the mid term.
Neutral
The report documents a variety of venture investments across infrastructure, DeFi, AI-enabled Web3 and prediction markets rather than a single market-moving event. Positive implications: sizeable capital injections (e.g., Based $11.5M, Zetrix AI $40M, STS Digital $30M) should support product development, liquidity provision and user growth in targeted ecosystems (notably Solana-linked projects, stablecoin rails and AI-agent tooling), which can lift transaction volumes and market depth over the medium term. Risk/limiting factors: these are private financings and strategic investments that do not directly increase circulating token supply or immediately affect tokenomics; market price reaction is typically muted unless accompanied by token listings, major partnerships or on-chain metric improvements. Historical parallels: prior waves of infrastructure funding (2019–2021) correlated with gradual increases in developer activity and eventual token appreciation for some ecosystems, but immediate price effects were uneven. For traders: expect neutral short-term price impact but potential mid-to-long-term bullish catalysts for assets tied to the funded projects or their host chains if funds translate into product launches, user growth or token utility. Monitor on-chain activity, token issuance events, listing announcements and stablecoin adoption metrics to reassess sentiment.