Cryptocurrency has had a big year, with venture capital funds pouring $30 billion into crypto — more than all previous years combined, Bloomberg reported.
That comes out to almost four times as much as the $8 billion high from 2018, according to the report.
“We’ve moved beyond just digital gold,” said Spencer Bogart, a general partner of Blockchain Capital, one of the industry’s biggest investors, in the report. “We’ve got financial services, art, gaming as a subcategory of [nonfungible tokens (NFTs)], Web 3.0, decentralized social media, play-to-earn — all of that made investors think, ‘We don’t have enough exposure.’”
Coinbase, Digital Currency Group and Polychain Capital have been betting on the next big crypto project, but other experimental projects have been raising money, including a social media app turning celebrities into tokens, a play-to-earn NFT game and more, the report stated.
Investors have been taking note of all of it, even for NFTs, which used to be considered niche. Bogart told Bloomberg the NFT market OpenSea, which not long ago was basically unknown, is now comparable to eCommerce marketplace Etsy.
The $30 billion also includes the money raised by Robinhood and Revolut, companies which are only dabbling in crypto, according to the report. But even in U.S. venture capital transactions, there has been a large amount of investing, including $7.2 billion in deals.
There are still gaps in financial institutions (FIs) being able to pay across borders with cryptocurrency tools.
Read more: Only 10% of Banks Support Crypto — Usually Bitcoin — for Cross-Border Deals
Only around one in 10 FIs allows for that, according to the report Cryptocurrency, Blockchain and Cross-Border Payments, a PYMNTS and Circle collaboration.
Bitcoin is the most common crypto FIs offer at 6%, and others like stablecoins, bitcoin cash and ether all at 4%.
But 58% of multinational firms use at least one crypto. Nineteen percent of those that don’t use a crypto said they’d like to.
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