ChainCatcher news, according to CoinDesk, Galaxy Digital stated in a research report on Wednesday that despite the recent rise in digital asset prices, cryptocurrency venture capital (VC) activity remains below previous bull market levels. In 2024, the total capital allocation of venture funds to the crypto industry is $11.5 billion, down from 2023. Galaxy pointed out that in the early rounds of bull markets in 2017 and 2021, VC activity was highly correlated with crypto asset prices, "but in the past two years, despite the rise in cryptocurrencies, VC activity has remained sluggish."There are several reasons for the stagnation in the venture capital market. Galaxy stated that these reasons include a "barbell market," where Bitcoin and its new spot ETF take center stage, while meme coins have "limited marginal net new activity." These meme coins struggle to secure funding and have a "questionable lifespan."The report noted that new projects at the intersection of artificial intelligence (AI) and cryptocurrency are gaining increasing attention, and upcoming regulatory changes may bring more opportunities for stablecoins, decentralized finance (DeFi), and tokenization. The report indicated that some large investors may gain exposure to cryptocurrencies through Bitcoin spot ETFs, "rather than turning to early VC investments."Galaxy stated that the U.S. completed the most transactions and invested the most funds in the fourth quarter. Galaxy added that early-stage deals accounted for 60% of the total investment in the fourth quarter, with stablecoin companies raising the most funds.The report also noted that in 2024, venture capitalists invested a total of $11.5 billion in startups focused on cryptocurrency and blockchain. These funds invested $3.5 billion in 416 deals in the fourth quarter, a quarter-over-quarter increase of 46%.

ChainCatcher news, RootData released the "2024 Web3 Industry Investment Research Report." The report shows that popular TGE projects in the first half of 2025 are mainly focused on BTC, artificial intelligence, and high-performance chains.2025 H1 Popular TGE Financing Overview (* indicates projects that have conducted TGE):Projects with total financing exceeding $100 million include Monad, Farcaster, *EigenLayer, *Magic Eden, Berachain;Projects with total financing between $50 million and $100 million include Babylon, *Scroll, Morpho, Eclipse;Projects with total financing between $10 million and $50 million include Sahara, Nillion, *Movement, *Puffer, Initia, Walletconnect, *Usual, Lombard, Solayer, *Bio, Sophon;Projects with total financing less than $10 million include Roam, Symbiotic, *deBridge, *Grass.In addition, the OTC market quotation amount has generally increased, with a total trading volume of 262 transactions, a month-on-month decrease of 3%; the total order quotation amount reached $1.2 billion, a month-on-month increase of 29%, with an average transaction amount of $5.2 million, a month-on-month increase of 34%. Buyers account for 41.98%, while sellers account for 58.02%. In the first half of 2025, the OTC market is led by Solana, driving the high-performance narrative of the Move ecosystem.

ChainCatcher news, RootData released the "2024 Web3 Industry Investment Research Report." The report shows that in 2024, VC coins have become a daunting term, with the crypto market bearing its exit liquidity. Projects such as Optimism, Sui, Aptos, Ethena, dydx, and Cardano unlock over 30 million tokens each month. Among these, there have been 9 major unlocking events (single transactions exceeding 100 million USD), namely INJ, MEME, PYTH, AVAX, SUI, W, JTO, APT, TIA.Comparing the prices before and after token unlocks, it is found that project parties can significantly raise token prices before large unlocks through early announcements of positive information, marketing, and other means. Over-the-counter (OTC) trading is the method with the least impact on token prices for exiting, which can eliminate the risk of significant token price drops.In addition, based on the popular tags from RootData over the past year (with over 5000 clicks), infrastructure, Layer 1/2, and DeFi remain the hottest tracks in blockchain. Tags such as artificial intelligence and DeSci have seen a rapid increase in clicks, with representative projects like Virtuals Protocol and Bio Protocol consistently ranking high on the RootData popularity list.The popularity of some high-click tags usually lasts only 1-3 months, such as DePIN, Tap to Earn, and the Bitcoin ecosystem.

ChainCatcher news, RootData released the "2024 Web3 Industry Investment Research Report." The report shows that, according to incomplete statistics, the total number of applications on Ethereum exceeds 2,500, still ranking first among public chains. The Ethereum ecosystem completed a total of 282 financing rounds throughout the year, with a total financing amount reaching 1.78 billion USD.The number of projects in the Base and Solana ecosystems grew faster than other public chains, with growth rates of 164.8% and 69.6%, respectively. In addition to performance factors such as speed and low gas fees, the combination of blockchain and AI experiments is an important factor driving the prosperity of public chains, with Virtuals Protocol and Pump.Fun attracting a large influx of hot money.In terms of financing capability, mature Layer 2s (such as Optimism and Arbitrum) show sluggish data, but the growth rate of ecosystem dApps remains around 20%, indicating a trend of breaking free from VC difficulties and becoming self-reliant.

ChainCatcher news, according to Cointelegraph, Grayscale's Managing Director of Research Zach Pandl stated that following the approval of the spot ETF in 2024 and the election of Trump, the crypto industry will see more small-scale breakthroughs in 2025. These include increased institutional adoption, Congress introducing a more comprehensive legislative framework, and Bitcoin potentially becoming a reserve asset for the United States.In a conversation with Ric Edelman, founder of the Digital Assets Council of Financial Professionals (DACFP), Pandl mentioned that it is not "completely impossible" for Bitcoin to reach $500,000 by 2030. He pointed out that pension funds and endowments that have been cautious about cryptocurrencies over the past decade are now actively engaging in this field, with some portfolio managers beginning to allocate up to 5% of their assets to crypto, and more institutional approval processes expected to be completed within 6-12 months.Additionally, Pandl anticipates that sovereign wealth funds outside the United States will increase their exposure to crypto assets in the coming months. He is particularly optimistic about the institutional adoption prospects of Ethereum, calling it "one of the most important open-source software projects." In the private equity space, decentralized finance (DeFi), tokenization of physical assets, and AI tokens may attract institutional interest.

ChainCatcher news, RootData released the "2024 Web3 Industry Investment Research Report." The report shows that early-stage investments (under $5 million) continue to dominate, with 627 financing events occurring throughout the year, a 20.6% increase from 520 projects in 2023. Mid-stage investments ($5 million to $10 million) showed robust growth, completing 244 projects in 2024, up 24.5% from 196 projects in 2023. Late-stage and large-scale investments (over $10 million) completed 188 projects, a slight increase from 175 projects in 2023.From the leaderboard of leading investors, Polychain ranks first with 30 lead investments, clearly focusing on the infrastructure and DeFi sectors. The second place, Hack VC, made 24 lead investments, 17 of which were directed towards the infrastructure field. Among Animoca Brands' 17 lead investments, 8 were directed towards gaming projects, demonstrating its professional layout in the gaming sector. Overall, sectors like NFT and DAO showed a lukewarm performance in terms of lead investments, with most institutions having zero lead investments in these areas.In the TOP 10 active investment institutions of 2024, OKX Ventures ranks first with 72 investments, primarily focusing on infrastructure and DeFi sectors. Notably, OKX Ventures was active in the gaming sector, making 34 investments. Following closely are MH Ventures and Cogitent Ventures, both making 56 investments.

ChainCatcher message, Base releases the 2025 roadmap, which includes increasing block space capacity to 250 Mgas/s, introducing 25 million users and 25,000 developers, and reaching a transaction volume of 1 billion by October, with on-chain asset scale reaching 100 billion within the year.On the technical roadmap, Base will focus on OnchainKit, Paymaster, and L3 to enhance the application experience. In terms of fiat experience, Base will open over 25 fiat channels to provide more distribution options for applications, developers, and creators.

ChainCatcher news, WBTC recently released an annual review stating that in 2024, the peak market value of WBTC reached $14.3 billion (December 18), with a single-day trading volume exceeding $1.01 billion (December 5), and the number of daily transactions reaching 1,029,900, accounting for 75.8% of the Ethereum Bitcoin token market. Its transaction fee is as low as $0.03, and more than 10 new projects have been integrated, expanding to 7 new chains including Base and zkSync, achieving a multi-chain ecological layout.Since its launch in 2019, WBTC has maintained zero security incidents and has firmly held its position as the leading Bitcoin tokenized asset in the DeFi ecosystem. In 2025, it will continue to focus on promoting cross-chain interoperability and DeFi innovative applications.

ChainCatcher news, according to a report from the stablecoin issuer Circle, the issuance of USDC is expected to grow by 78% in 2024. Currently, USDC has over 500 million users. In November 2024, the monthly trading volume of USDC exceeded $1 trillion, bringing its historical total trading volume to over $18 trillion.

ChainCatcher news, Sci-Hub founder Alexandra released the 2024 annual summary. The report shows that the project received $2 million in funding through the $scihib meme coin. Alexandra stated that part of the funds has been converted to Bitcoin and used to pay for server costs, while the remaining portion is kept in meme coins.In addition, the platform's paper download volume in 2024 reached approximately 1 billion, indicating a continuous growth in user demand. Alexandra also revealed that a new open access declaration for scientific knowledge is being formulated, with plans to promote the legalization of platforms like Sci-Hub starting from former Soviet countries.