I’ve been receiving numerous messages from people I know about obscure tokens, emerging chains, and arcane investment strategies. I often ask, “Where do you even learn about this stuff?” and “How did you even hear about something like this?” The answers usually include some mix of reading forums, being part of the right Telegram chats, or following certain people on X who are essentially shilling their bags.
After researching these obscure tokens and chains, I wondered: Who is buying this stuff? I had trouble understanding why anyone would need to support these chains or own their associated tokens unless they were speculating on price increases. This led me to a different question: Who is funding this stuff? Where is the money coming from in the blockchain world, and what types of projects are being funded?
When I began writing this article, data from DeFi Llama had only logged the first 10 days of the New Year (2025), but even though it was a small dataset, it contained some interesting insights. Within that short period, 20 deals had been completed, raising a cumulative $187.76 million. Of those 20 deals, eight fundraising rounds were for amounts exceeding $5 million.
While this data set is limited due to the year just starting, I think there’s merit in examining these early deals. Many of these companies and their investors likely wanted their deals to be the “first deal of the year,” offering a glimpse into potential trends and investment priorities for 2025. To narrow the focus and filter out the noise of public token sales, I analyzed only companies that raised over $5 million without selling tokens directly to the public. Here’s what I found:
The largest blockchain investments in the first 10 days of 2025
- VOOX – An “AI-driven” digital currency exchange that raised $50 million.
- OG Labs – The creator of a blockchain-based decentralized AI operating system that secured $32.24 million.
- Fold Inc. – A company offering Bitcoin-based banking and payment solutions, raising $20 million.
- SoSoValue – A digital currency data platform that closed a $15 million funding round.
- Alloy X – A “stablecoin infrastructure firm” focused on digital currency payments for merchants, raising $10 million.
- Nakamoto Games – A play-to-earn gaming company that raised $10 million.
- Alpen Labs – Developers of an “endgame platform for money built on Bitcoin” with a protocol for secure BTC network transactions, raising $8.5 million.
- Aqua Wallet – A digital currency wallet that raised $5 million.
Patterns and insights from early 2025 digital currency investments
The AI factor:
It’s no coincidence that the two largest fundraisers, VOOX and OG Labs, are marketed as AI companies. AI continues to dominate as a hot investment sector. In 2024, 41% of all venture capital deployed in the United States went to AI-related companies, dwarfing the amounts raised by other industries.
However, when scrutinizing these two companies, it wasn’t clear how they used AI beyond leveraging the name for marketing purposes. VOOX, the digital currency exchange, does not seem to use AI in any significant way within its customer-facing operations. Similarly, OG Labs’ decentralized AI operating system primarily decentralizes storage and computing power—tasks most blockchain networks do by default. This leads me to believe that these companies aren’t truly AI-focused but are leveraging the buzzword to attract investment.
Straightforward business models always attract funding
Outside of the AI-focused outliers, the companies with the third, fourth, and fifth-largest investments—Fold Inc., SoSoValue, and Alloy X—share one thing in common: they each have clear and intuitive business models. It’s easy to understand how a payments provider like Alloy X makes money by taking a small percentage of transaction totals, how a company like Fold Inc. finds arbitrage opportunities through banking activities and can create reviews between the time a user deposits and withdrawals, and how a data platform like SoSoValue generates income by selling data to companies looking to improve decision-making or create trading strategies. The clear path to profitability for these companies likely played a significant role in giving investors the confidence to invest.
The ongoing challenge of buzzwords and “Word Soup”
One trend that hasn’t changed in the digital currency industry is the prevalence of buzzwords. Nearly all of these eight companies use complex jargon to dazzle their potential audience and investors, relying on futuristic and smart-sounding language to captivate potential audiences with words that sound intelligent enough to draw them into whatever is being built and sold.
What early 2025 funding signals for the blockchain industry
Although the data set is small and represents just a fraction of what’s to come in 2025, these early deals offer clues about where the industry might be headed. Based on the trends observed, we can probably expect AI projects to capture a significant share of investment dollars; even if their actual use of AI is minimal, companies with clear paths to profitability and straightforward value propositions will continue to attract funding as they are safer bets for most investors, and the the overuse of techno-jargon to continue, which will, unfortunately, alienate potential users and limit the reach of blockchain products beyond the existing digital currency-enthusiast community.
The Bigger Challenge: Adoption beyond digital currency enthusiasts
As I dug deeper into these eight companies, I wondered, “Who is actually using these products and services?” Securing investment dollars is a great signal, but it’s only one piece of the puzzle. I think an uphill battle that all companies will need to face relates to growth and new user adoption.
No matter how much money a company raises, its longevity depends on paying customers and sustainable growth. Unfortunately, many blockchain companies still lack a clear plan for user adoption outside of attracting individuals who are already inclined to explore blockchain and digital currency projects.
The industry risks stagnation without solving real-world problems or addressing pain points that compel users to engage. Newcomers will continue to avoid digital currency due to high technical barriers to entry and perceived risks, leaving only the existing—and shrinking—community of digital currency enthusiasts to use these new products and services. But who knows? The new year has just begun, and there is a lot of time and hope that the incoming Trump administration will be the catalyst for the changes that many people expect and look to see in the digital currency industry in 2025.
Watch: What is IBM’s take on BSV blockchain?
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Source: https://coingeek.com/the-state-of-blockchain-funding-in-early-2025/