Bloomberg recently reported that SoftBank and Cathie Wood’s Ark Investment are among the high-profile investors in early discussions to back this extensive funding round. These firms are known for their strategic investments in technology, making them ideal candidates to boost Tether’s capital expansion.

Tether Funding: A $20 Billion Vision

Bloomberg’s report suggests that Tether aims to raise up to $20 billion, potentially valuing the company at an astonishing $500 billion. This would position the crypto company among the world’s most valuable private enterprises, alongside giants like OpenAI and SpaceX.

According to sources, Cantor Fitzgerald, a shareholder in Tether, is advising on this significant deal. The strategic involvement of such partners underscores the importance and scale of this funding effort.

Potential Impact on the Stablecoin Market

With a current supply of $173 billion in USDT tokens, Tether stands as the largest stablecoin issuer. The successful completion of this funding round could further solidify its dominance in the crypto market. The funds would likely be used to bolster operational capabilities and explore new market opportunities.

Interestingly, Tether is also planning to introduce a USD-pegged stablecoin tailored for the U.S. market. Despite the buzz around the funding, Bo Hines, CEO of Tether’s U.S. unit, stated at a Seoul conference that the firm “has no plans to raise money” at this time.

Strategic Partnerships and Future Prospects

Tether has a track record of forming strategic alliances, with SoftBank and Cantor Fitzgerald already partnering in the Bitcoin treasury firm Twenty One Capital. This collaboration began with an impressive $3.6 billion in bitcoin, highlighting Tether’s commitment to maintaining a robust financial strategy.

The potential $20 billion funding round could further enhance Tether’s ability to innovate and expand its offerings, potentially revolutionizing the stablecoin market landscape.

As the crypto industry continues to evolve, Tether’s funding aspirations may serve as a catalyst for further growth and stability within the sector. Investors and market analysts will be keenly observing how this unfolds and its broader implications for digital currencies.

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Understanding the Rise of Crypto Treasury Deals

Throughout 2025, the prominence of crypto treasury deals has been unmistakable. According to data from The Block Pro, venture capital rounds for crypto startups, excluding DATs and token sales, have dropped dramatically. The number of these rounds fell from 1,933 in the previous year to just 856, marking a 56% decrease.

The total funding witnessed a reduction from $8.13 billion in the January–August period of 2024 to $8.05 billion in 2025. This figure, however, is inflated due to Binance’s substantial $2 billion raise in March. Without this, traditional funding plummeted to $6.05 billion, reflecting a 26% year-over-year decline.

Why VCs Favor Crypto Treasury Deals

Investors are gravitating towards crypto treasury deals for several compelling reasons. DATs offer immediate mark-to-market pricing and enhanced liquidity compared to conventional ventures. Additionally, when trading at a premium to net asset value (mNAV), they provide opportunities to raise more funds, acquire more crypto, and increase NAV per share.

Currently, liquid funds dominate the scene, with some VCs utilizing DATs as a temporary haven for idle capital. As noted by Ed Roman, co-founder of Hack VC, the appeal of DATs is clear, but their long-term viability will depend on the stability of mNAV multiples, especially in Bitcoin and altcoin-focused DATs.

Shifts in Venture Capital Strategy

A sharper focus on fundamentals has also contributed to the slowdown in early-stage venture activity. Investors are now prioritizing revenue-generating protocols with tangible value capture rather than mere narratives. Projects like Hyperliquid, which channel significant revenue back to token holders, have raised the bar for new startups.

Cosmo Jiang of Pantera Capital describes the shift away from backing valueless tokens as a healthy reset. The focus has returned to equity and revenue, moving away from speculative token launches.

Market Frictions and Future Prospects

Beyond DATs, broader market frictions are constraining early-stage funding. The post-2021 boom era has made it challenging for smaller crypto funds to secure backing, leading to limited “dry powder” for early-stage deals. Jed Breed of Breed VC highlights the cooling appetite among limited partners for small VCs.

Despite tighter capital availability, the quality of deal flow has improved. Teams now present with revenue models, compliance, and distribution channels, particularly in stablecoin projects. This trend signals a more mature and discerning investment landscape.

Opportunities remain underfunded, particularly in sectors like decentralized physical infrastructure networks (DePINs) and DeFi protocols with proven revenue models. Zero-knowledge technology and on-chain intellectual property are also emerging as promising areas.

The Future of Crypto Treasury Deals

Most VCs agree that crypto treasury deals will persist, albeit with a likely shakeout. Experts foresee a compression of NAV premiums, with a few large-scale DATs dominating the market. However, there’s a cautionary note on the proliferation of similar DAT strategies, which could face a significant shakeout during the next crypto downturn.

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The raised funds will be allocated to the purchase of 2,900 Bitmain S21 Pro miners, scheduled for deployment in the coming four to six months. This strategic expansion is forecasted to generate an extra $10 million in revenue.

Headquartered in Vancouver, Canada, Bitzero manages data centers in North America and Europe. It is noteworthy to mention that Kevin O’Leary, a renowned investor and Shark Tank personality, is among its supporters.

Bitzero initiated its carbon-neutral mining drive as early as 2022, beginning its journey in Norway through a collaboration with local authorities. Since then, the company has continued to grow its presence in the HPC arena.

Bitzero is not the only player undergoing this transformation. Bitfarms, earlier this week, unveiled plans to venture into the HPC and data center sectors, using its Pennsylvania energy portfolio as a strategic advantage. As part of the transition, the company rebranded itself to reflect an expanded focus on AI and HPC, in addition to its primary Bitcoin (BTC) mining operations.

Hive Digital Technologies was one of the pioneers in shifting towards HPC and AI data centers, kicking off its transition in 2022. The company started to report HPC-related revenue in its income statement a year later. Hive’s HPC division is currently running at an annual rate of $20 million, with targets reaching $100 million by 2026.

Bitcoin miners have had to adapt to increasing market pressures. Factors such as reduced block rewards, higher electricity costs, and escalating maintenance requirements have encouraged miners to diversify into other energy-intensive tasks. The surge in AI demand has presented an ideal opportunity for these companies to repurpose or upgrade their infrastructure, especially GPUs, to support AI training and high-performance computing.

In addition to branching out into new workloads, several miners have embraced a “Hodl” strategy, retaining their mined Bitcoin in anticipation of future price increases. This strategy has proved successful in 2024 and 2025, with Bitcoin repeatedly achieving record-breaking highs, most recently exceeding $123,000.

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Spiko brings attention to the roughly $25 trillion in European bank deposits that currently sit idle, missing out on potential yields and capital efficiency. Unlike in Europe, U.S. businesses commonly earn interest on their cash without sacrificing liquidity. Growing demand for better cash optimization is now pushing European firms to diversify deposits, according to the AMF-regulated fintech firm.

Spiko aims to bridge this cash yield gap between Europe and the U.S. by offering businesses daily interest without lock-ups through what it refers to as Europe’s premier tokenized money market funds. “In Europe, there’s a common misconception that your money won’t earn interest unless you lock it away or assume risk,” Spiko co-founder Paul-Adrien Hyppolite explained. “But as long as central bank rates are above zero, sitting on idle cash implies that European businesses are missing out on returns that U.S. counterparts routinely receive. With Spiko, we’re revolutionizing the system by making it simple for anyone to put their cash to work.”

Spiko was established by Hyppolite and Antoine Michon, both ex-French Treasury and government officials with experience at Palantir. The fintech startup, which began operations a year ago, claims to have processed over $900 million of working capital from more than 1,000 businesses. It has ambitious plans to increase distribution through strategic partnerships with companies like Memo Bank and Fygr, and aims to manage $1 billion in assets by 2025.

Spiko intends to use the newly acquired capital to boost growth in Europe through investment in sales, marketing, product development, and partnership acquisitions, while also preparing for potential U.S. expansion.

Spiko operates by utilizing blockchains, including Ethereum, Arbitrum, and Polygon, to tokenize money market funds and make them more accessible to smaller businesses often overlooked by traditional banks. Acting as a transfer agent on a blockchain ledger, Spiko eliminates legacy custodians and intermediaries, reducing costs and enabling 24/7 cash-equivalent transfers worldwide.

Its funds invest in highly liquid, low-risk assets, such as Eurozone and U.S. Treasury bills, backed by sovereign guarantees and linked to central bank rates. Spiko’s architecture also supports stablecoin transfers as an alternative to wire payments, allowing customers to move funds seamlessly between digital currencies and fiat.

Disclaimer: The Block is an independent news outlet that provides crypto news, research, and data. As of November 2023, Foresight Ventures is a majority investor in The Block. Foresight Ventures invests in other companies in the crypto space. Crypto exchange Bitget is an anchor LP for Foresight Ventures. The Block continues to operate independently to deliver objective, impactful, and timely information about the crypto industry. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

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The startup has emerged at a critical time when the lines between traditional finance and cryptocurrency are fading, with major companies like Stripe, Robinhood, and PayPal embracing crypto services. Turnkey’s co-founder and CEO Bryce Ferguson stated that while traditional custodial infrastructure may work for some use cases, it’s not suitable for large-scale, crypto-native applications.

Turnkey was established in 2022 to tackle this issue, with its mission to develop an “open infrastructure layer for crypto.” This would allow developers to build stablecoin apps, DeFi terminals, or onchain AI agents securely and conveniently. Turnkey’s system offers a blend of usability and security, boasting of seedless, extension-free integrations, cryptographically verifiable architecture, adaptable APIs for custom logic, and a scalable infrastructure.

The crypto wallet infrastructure sector is expanding rapidly, with numerous key entities focusing on embedded wallets, key management, developer tooling, and user onboarding. This includes projects like Web3Auth and Privy. Turnkey power over 50 million embedded wallets and processes millions of transactions weekly across DeFi, payments, developer tools, and consumer apps. Some of its clients include Bridge, Magic Eden, Alchemy, and Moonshot.

Turnkey plans to utilize the new funding to grow its team and broaden its modular infrastructure, concentrating on open-source contributions, deeper integrations, and extensive support for payments, AI agents, DeFi, and other crypto applications. “We’re not just building tools, we’re building the infrastructure that lets crypto evolve the way the internet did: openly, collaboratively, and at scale,” said Ferguson. “We’re still early. Less than 10% of the global population uses crypto today, and the infrastructure reflects that. But the foundations we lay now will shape the next decade of digital finance. The future of finance is open.”

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Twenty One Capital’s total funding reached a whopping $685 million after its investors opted to buy more convertible bonds. The backers of Twenty One Capital increased their investment by an additional $100 million in convertible senior secured notes, pushing the total funding of the Bitcoin treasury to $685 million.

Twenty One Capital, which had recently disclosed ambitious plans to acquire billions of dollars’ worth of Bitcoin, has also announced the launch of a proof of reserves, a public ledger confirming its Bitcoin treasury assets.

In other significant news, decentralized computing layer aZen closed a $1.2 million seed round, led by Waterdrip Capital with additional contributions from DWF Ventures, Rootz Labs, and Mindfulness Capital among others. The platform is developing decentralized physical infrastructure networks (DePINs) for AI applications, reducing dependency on advanced chips amid supply chain disruptions.

Securitize, a tokenization platform, received an undisclosed investment from venture capital firm Jump Crypto. This marks Securitize’s first investment since BlackRock’s $47 million allocation in 2024. Securitize is now the largest tokenization market, with $4 billion in onchain assets.

UK-based tokenization company Savea received $2.5 million in seed funding to support its quest to launch tokenized investment products backed by scarce assets, such as wine, luxury watches, and classic cars. The round was led by venture studio EmergentX.

Lastly, self-custodial crypto wallet Dexari successfully closed a $2.3 million seed round. The funding will be used to further improve Dexari’s wallet, which also serves as a mobile trading app. Dexari, built on Hyperliquid, is hailed by Roderik van der Graaf, founder, and managing partner of Lemniscap, as “setting a new standard in crypto UX” away from complexity.

The post Venture Capital Highlights: $100M Boost for Bitcoin Treasury Twenty One Capital, Jump Capital Supports Securitize appeared first on Crypto Market Insights: Dive In with CryptoUpdate.io.

The venture capital heavyweight has a history of backing LayerZero, with initial funding provided in March 2022 and follow-up investment during LayerZero’s Series B funding round in April 2023. However, the companies have kept the valuation of the funding round under wraps.

LayerZero, a Canadian firm, was valued at a whopping $3 billion during its Series B round, which attracted 33 investors. Among the participants were notable names such as Circle Ventures, OKX Ventures, OpenSea Ventures, Sequoia Capital, and, of course, a16z.

In January 2025, LayerZero settled a long-standing disagreement with the FTX Estate, which had accused the former of exploiting the exchange’s liquidity crisis to negotiate a “fire-sale transaction.” In June 2024, LayerZero introduced its own token, known as LayerZero (ZRO).

Crosschain messaging protocols, which allow for information exchange across ecosystems, have been gaining traction, especially among decentralized applications (DApps) and traders seeking seamless cross-blockchain swaps. LayerZero faces competition from other protocols such as Wormhole, Stargate, Superbridge, Connext, and more.

Wormhole, one of LayerZero’s biggest competitors, secured $225 million in funding at a $2.5 billion valuation in November 2023. Like LayerZero, Wormhole also held an airdrop for its token, Wormhole (W), which unfortunately attracted fraudulent activities and fake tokens. Chainlink is another player in the space, offering a crosschain interoperability protocol for messaging between blockchains.

Increasingly, companies are recognizing the benefits of being omnichain or at least chain-agnostic. Phantom, initially a Solana-centric wallet, now extends its support to six major blockchains, including Bitcoin and Ethereum. Likewise, Magic Eden, an NFT-infrastructure company that started on Solana, now hosts marketplaces on multiple blockchains.

The post A16z Bolsters Investment in LayerZero with an Additional $55M Funding appeared first on Crypto Market Insights: Dive In with CryptoUpdate.io.

The two proposals, integral to the ‘Uniswap Unleashed’ strategy, are aimed at advancing the Uniswap ecosystem. These proposals signify a new era in our community by opening up new opportunities for growth, development, and value creation and capture, as stated by the Uniswap Foundation on X, a social media platform.

These proposals were developed in partnership with the Uniswap Foundation and Gauntlet, a web3 risk management protocol. The proposed liquidity incentives are designed to attract new users and sustain ecosystem expansion via developer-centric campaigns. The foundation has requested $95.4 million for its grants budget and an additional $25.1 million to fund operations over the next two years. In a separate proposal, the foundation solicited a $45 million budget to support liquidity incentives.

Gauntlet has deployed and configured an Aera vault for the Uniswap Foundation on the mainnet, which will be seeded with more than 7.5 million UNI tokens, valued at approximately $52 million at the time of writing. The UNI token has surged over 10%, according to data from The Block.

As for the much-debated fee switch, it will be implemented after the Uniswap Foundation completes the necessary legal steps to distribute protocol fee revenue to its governance members, paving the way for a potential introduction of a governance proposal for delegators to earn protocol revenue.

This fee switch will channel a part of the protocol revenues currently captured by liquidity providers to UNI token holders. This delayed activation has been a point of concern within the community, especially after previous votes did not yield results. Uniswap has amassed over $1 billion in annualized fees.

The Uniswap Foundation, an independent non-profit entity, manages the growth of the Uniswap protocol, community, and ecosystem. It was established to lay the groundwork for a fee switch. Uniswap v4 was launched in mid-January, transforming the decentralized exchange into a developer protocol. Uniswap Labs, the firm behind the Uniswap ecosystem, also introduced the Layer 2 network Unichain powered by the Optimism tech stack, as previously reported by The Block.

Disclaimer: The Block is an independent media outlet providing news, research, and data. As of November 2023, Foresight Ventures is a majority investor of The Block. Foresight Ventures invests in other companies in the crypto space. Crypto exchange Bitget is an anchor LP for Foresight Ventures. The Block continues to operate independently to deliver objective, impactful, and timely information about the crypto industry. This article is for informational purposes only and is not intended as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

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Earlier this month, TEN showcased the potential of TEE-empowered smart contracts by developing applications initially labeled as unattainable. These include order books immune to front-running, games featuring genuine hidden states, and a fully functional on-chain poker. Now, TEN is opening opportunities for builders to create applications that resonate with everyday users.

“With the combination of TEEs and Ethereum, we’ve unlocked what’s feasible,” stated Cais Manai, Product Lead at TEN. “Our ‘Zero to TEN’ initiative is about sponsoring builders who can visualize beyond the present restrictions of blockchain.”

The incubation program of TEN directly incentivizes builders to deploy on its network, leveraging the exclusive encryption and confidential computing capabilities of TEN to unlock new on-chain use cases. Selected projects through Zero to TEN will receive:

• $100,000 in direct builder support
• A share of sequencer revenue for projects that complete the program
• Marketing and BD support
• Technical development assistance

In addition, projects will also have the chance to launch their tokens exclusively on TEN’s native launchpads, like Chimp, ensuring dedicated support and a thriving ecosystem for at least half a year.

“This is beyond an ordinary grant program,” added Cais Manai. “We’re fostering an ecosystem for builders who aspire to bring crypto into the mainstream by developing what was once impossible.”

Applications are currently being accepted for the program, with limited spots available. To learn more or apply for the Zero to TEN program, visit: https://ten.xyz/

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The investment round was finalized in December, with renowned investors such as Franklin Templeton and Fidelity Investments-affiliated F-Prime Capital leading the charge, as per an anonymous source cited in the report.

In a blog post released in January, Ethena’s founder Guy Young stated that the company is gearing up to launch iUSDe, a novel token specifically designed for regulated financial entities.

Unlike other tokens, the synthetic stablecoin USDe is not backed 1:1 by fiat assets. Instead, it achieves its peg by collateralizing other stablecoins and establishing futures positions with significant open interest.

This month, USDe’s market cap has soared to approximately $6 billion, making it the third-largest stablecoin after Tether’s USDT and Circle’s USDC, valued at $142 billion and $57 billion, respectively.

Some analysts perceive USDe as a potential safe haven during periods of high volatility in the broader cryptocurrency market. Arthur Hayes, the CIO of Maelstrom, has noted that the digital asset fund has inflated its exposure to USDe to “record levels”.

“We will be ready with ample dry powder to buy the dip on Bitcoin,” said Hayes, an investor in and advisor to Ethena.

Ethena, however, has not yet responded to CoinDesk’s request for comment on the $100 million funding round.

Related Article: Peter Thiel-Backed Plasma Secures $20M to Build Bitcoin-Based Network for Stablecoin

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