Tiger Research: In the first half of 2026, cryptocurrency financing reached 13.3 billion USD, with the number of funding rounds down 78% from the peak in 2022

According to Tiger Research and RootData based on research of 9,416 investment transaction data from the first half of 2018 to 2026, the capital inflow in the cryptocurrency market reached $13.3 billion in the first half of 2026, which is basically on par with the total of $13.2 billion for the entire year of 2024. However, the number of financing rounds was only 435, a decrease of 78% from the peak of 1,978 rounds in 2022, indicating that market funds are accelerating towards a few large transactions.

The report points out that the current cryptocurrency investment market is dominated by a few large crypto-native VCs focused on leading investments, as well as venture capital departments of exchanges with liquidity and marketing support, while medium-sized institutions are being rapidly squeezed out. In terms of financing structure, the number of seed round transactions decreased by 88% from 2022 to 81, while financing in Series A and later stages accounted for 75.2% of total investments, with Series A financing amounting to $745.8 million, exceeding the total amount of all seed round financing of $423.3 million during the same period.

In terms of sectors, payments and stablecoins, centralized exchanges, and prediction markets have become the most concentrated areas of capital. The payments and stablecoins sector attracted $2.85 billion in funding in the first half of 2026, but about 84% of this was driven by mergers and acquisitions such as Mastercard's acquisition of BVNK and Payward's acquisition of Reap; the investment share in the CEX sector rose to 18.2%, while prediction markets rose to 17.5%. In contrast, the number of financing rounds in the gaming sector plummeted from 141 rounds in 2024 to only 5 rounds, a decrease of 96%. Additionally, traditional financial institutions participated in 54.5% of all investment transactions in the first half of 2026.

It is reported that Tiger Research is an independent research institution established in 2022, covering the Asian digital asset market, with business operations in South Korea, Japan, China, and Indonesia, publishing institutional-level research content in five languages, with over 100,000 monthly readers and more than 200 institutional clients.