Crypto Venture Funding Drops 63% (bloomberg.com) 27
Venture capitalists have been under fresh scrutiny for their role hyping up the crypto industry during the criminal trial of FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried, but new data shows that those investors have pulled back sharply from the industry they once helped build and promote. From a report: Global venture funding for crypto startups plunged to its lowest level since 2020 during the third quarter, tumbling 63% from the same period last year, according to data from research firm PitchBook. VCs invested just $2 billion in crypto worldwide during the quarter, a fraction of the funds they invested during happier times in the crypto world. "We aren't seeing the big deals anymore," PitchBook analyst Robert Le said. "That's one of the drivers of the decline -- deals are smaller."
Mega fundraises during the crypto bull market once benefited companies like exchange FTX, nonfungible token marketplace OpenSea and NFT creator Yuga Labs. Now, the VC pullback could force difficult choices for companies already cutting costs and enacting layoffs. "If they're not able to raise a round, even a down round, they're either going to go out of business or get acquired at a valuation that's much, much lower," Le said. While crypto deals might still be happening for early-stage companies, Le said, many late-stage tech investors have exited the space completely.
Mega fundraises during the crypto bull market once benefited companies like exchange FTX, nonfungible token marketplace OpenSea and NFT creator Yuga Labs. Now, the VC pullback could force difficult choices for companies already cutting costs and enacting layoffs. "If they're not able to raise a round, even a down round, they're either going to go out of business or get acquired at a valuation that's much, much lower," Le said. While crypto deals might still be happening for early-stage companies, Le said, many late-stage tech investors have exited the space completely.
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The idiots who think they are going to make a mint on it disagree. Whether setting fire to their apartments with mining rigs or losing their life savings...
I wonder what the next pyramid scheme is going to be.
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I wonder what the next pyramid scheme is going to be
NEW! Improved! Crypto 10.0!
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https://investor.vanguard.com/... [vanguard.com]
Crypto numbers move too fast to be a bond although they have bond-like properties.
They also have stock equity properties.
And commodity properties.
For the average random they're more like a game of hot potato. Sort of. You don't want to be the one holding the hot potato rug pull or crypto crash but along the way it sure can be fun watching others get burned!
Either way, I don't think it matters exactly how they fit into the current blend of financial investment options. The
Crypto Venture Funding Drops 63%..? (Score:3)
The well of stupid has run dry (Score:3)
Too many of these idiots got burned. It'll take a few years before people start thinking crypto / NFT bullshit scams are a sound investment again.
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Too many of these idiots got burned. It'll take a few years before people start thinking crypto / NFT bullshit scams are a sound investment again.
A few years? I'm still waiting for tulip bulb investments to come back into fashion, kleptocoins need to join the line way after them.
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Stupid people will move onto the next scam to lose money.
Don't know if this is accurate, but ... (Score:3)
I heard an analyst say the only people making money from crypto are "people who bought Bitcoin at zero and people running exchanges". I don't know if that's an accurate generalization, but it sounds (about) right or at least plausible, though I'm starting to think those people running exchanges are only making (as much) money because they're doing something, or several somethings, shady.
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The electric utility is making money, lol.
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Cryptocurrency is *extremely* negative sum. The only way to make money - actual cash not just more crypto - is for someone to buy in more. The crypto itself is locked up in the ecosystem and can't be used outside of it, meaning there is nothing to spend it on except other crypto garbage.
And since you need exchanges to shuffle the crypto around, and they take a cut every time... of course they're the only ones who stand to make any money. Unless they're taking payments in crypto, in which case I don't know h
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There's very little actual liquidity in the market (Score:2)
Wash traders though can make good money, or at least they used to. It's not all that hard to manipulate the market, draw in some suckers and dump your crypto on them.
What ? 37% remains still?? (Score:2)
Funding only dropped 63% and 37% of funding still remains!! Shocking!!!
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But it's not 100% (Score:2)
Regulatory Arbs keep going faster and faster... (Score:1)
Crypto kinda made sense as a pitch and was a trend that lasted over a decade but really it was just about tax evasion and pumpery. Two things that would have been illegal if tech wasn't less regulated than traditonal finance.
Then came NFT's which made even less sense as a product than crypto in general. It was pure flim-flammery wi
thought we had moved on to the next grift (Score:4)
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You gotta monkey branch from one thing to the next. It takes time to turn your crypto pool into an AI cloud.
In the meantime, please keep putting money into crypto. There are kids all over the world starving because they don't have any crypto! Imagine how wealthy they'd be if they got in on the ground floor of this new coin I'm minting! Don't miss out, analysts say it is going to a million soon!
And then we're going to fund our AI project with crypto and....
It's tulips all the way down.
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I don't know about you, but I haven't figured out a way to use AI to turn the graphics card in my gaming PC into an Internet money printer like I could in 2020. When someone figures that one out, it will definitely become the hottest new grift.
Wonder what's next? (Score:2)
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We've had crypto scam tokens going as far back as early 2017, long before NFT's became popular. I guess that they went back to the classic scams once the bubble burst on NFT's.
Only? (Score:2)
VCs really are stupider than I thought if they only drop by 63% at this point.
That's surprising (Score:2)
Ugly baboon pictures are the future. (Score:2)
I always was convinced that they were the future and hold their value because they are blockchained to someone else's computer, in fact many other people so it's completely safe.
slashdot is a shambles (Score:2)
jfc the only people dumber than the VCs buying the top are the people in this thread.