Crypto VC market stays active while DeFi funding falls to new low

Crypto venture funding has reached $1.2 billion in July even as DeFi investment has fallen to its lowest quarterly level since late 2023.

CryptoRank data shows that investors completed roughly 25 funding rounds in July as of July 20, keeping capital active despite a sharp decline in the number of announced deals.

Monthly fundraising has moved unevenly throughout 2026. According to CryptoRank, crypto companies raised $1.14 billion in January before the total slipped to $896.3 million in February. Funding then climbed to $2.2 billion in March, supported by roughly 85 deals, the highest monthly count shown in the six-month chart.

April brought the sharpest reversal of the year. CryptoRank recorded $698.2 million for the month, while an earlier crypto.news report placed the amount at $659 million across 63 funding rounds. The crypto.news figure represented a 74% decline from March’s roughly $2.6 billion and 84 deals, taking monthly funding back toward levels last seen in 2024.

Differences between the two April totals may result from later database updates or varying methods used to classify deals. CryptoRank’s current chart nevertheless confirms the same direction: both the amount raised and the number of completed rounds fell sharply after March.

Funding rebounded to $3.89 billion in May, the highest monthly total in CryptoRank’s six-month view. Although the number of deals remained below March’s peak, larger transactions pushed the total well above every other month shown in the dataset.

By June, fundraising had cooled to $1.44 billion as the monthly deal count fell to about 60. CryptoRank’s partial July reading of $1.2 billion has come with a further decline to around 25 rounds, suggesting that a smaller pool of transactions is accounting for much of the capital raised.

Major crypto investors have continued backing selected projects

Coinbase Ventures has remained the most active fund in CryptoRank’s six-month ranking, participating in 33 investments and leading one of them. The data does not provide the value of those transactions, but the deal count places Coinbase Ventures well ahead of other funds tracked during the period.

Animoca Brands ranked second with 19 deals, followed by Andreessen Horowitz’s a16z crypto with 18 and Tether with 17, according to CryptoRank. Becker Ventures, Castrum Capital and Galaxy each participated in 10 transactions, while GSR, YZi Labs, Y Combinator and Circle Ventures completed nine apiece.

Paradigm also remained active with eight investments, according to the same ranking. Earlier in July, crypto.news reported that Paradigm had raised $1.2 billion for its fourth fund, giving the firm fresh capital for investments across crypto, artificial intelligence, robotics, software and hardware.

Co-founder Matt Huang and managing partner Alana Palmedo announced the vehicle on July 8. Paradigm described the mandate as an expansion into other technology markets rather than a withdrawal from digital assets, telling investors that the firm would continue investing “first in crypto.”

Across individual categories, exchanges attracted the most capital during CryptoRank’s six-month period, raising about $2.5 billion. Prediction markets followed with roughly $1.9 billion, while payments secured around $1.6 billion and AI projects collected approximately $1.3 billion.

Blockchain companies raised close to $767 million, according to CryptoRank’s category ranking, while infrastructure projects secured $533 million. Mining and compute companies attracted $433 million, followed by brokerages at $393 million and real-world asset projects at $340 million.

Geographically, the United States remained the most active crypto VC jurisdiction with 249 projects over the past six months, CryptoRank data shows. The United Kingdom followed with 67 projects, while Singapore recorded 57, China 32 and Japan 30. Canada accounted for 16 projects, compared with 14 in the United Arab Emirates and 12 in the Seychelles.

DeFi funding has fallen behind competing crypto sectors

DeFi projects raised about $654 million during the six-month period, placing the sector behind exchanges, prediction markets, payments, AI and blockchain in CryptoRank’s category table. The total also shows that DeFi continued receiving capital even as its position within the venture market weakened.

Quarterly data from CryptoRank shows that VC investment in DeFi has declined for three consecutive quarters. The latest quarterly amount fell to its lowest level since the fourth quarter of 2023, while the number of DeFi funding rounds in the second quarter of 2026 dropped to its lowest point since 2020.

CryptoRank’s figures indicate that investors have become more selective when backing DeFi companies, with fewer projects securing financing despite continued activity elsewhere in the crypto market. At the same time, the concentration of funds in exchanges, prediction markets and payments shows where investors committed the largest sums during the measured period.

The recent numbers leave the overall crypto VC market active but uneven. CryptoRank’s monthly data shows that capital can still rise rapidly when large deals close, while falling deal counts and weaker DeFi financing point to tighter competition among early-stage projects.