Crypto Market Data December Summary: Capital Aims at Bitcoin, Token Issuance Surge Looms.
Authors: BlockCookies & Elvin, RootData
Funding in the cryptocurrency space totaled $909 million in December, down 6.5% year-over-year, and the number of funding rounds was 98, up 5.3% year-over-year.
Fueled by strength in the primary market, the crypto space investment and financing volume remained strong in December compared to the previous third quarter, but retreated from November, dropping from $1.2 billion to $910 million. This may have been heavily influenced by the Christmas holidays in Europe and the US, where many funding announcements were postponed, in addition to a marked decrease in large funding rounds.
Meanwhile, there has been a significant increase in funding events for Bitcoin eco-projects, with the Bitcoin eco DeFi solution BitSmiley receiving investment from ABCDE Capital and OKX Ventures, and the Bitcoin Chain Tour Ordz Games completing a seed round, as the Ordinals marketplace continues to garner a great deal of attention.
In this article, we will focus on specific funding data, active investors, hot projects, new coin launches, and many other aspects of the crypto market to present you with the changing trends of the crypto market.
I. Financing data
Total funding in the cryptocurrency space in December was $909 million, down 6.5% year-over-year from December 2022 ($973 million) and down 25.6% from November 2023 ($1,222 million). The number of financings was 98, up 5.3% year-over-year. The December crypto financing market was characterized by:
a. Fewer large financing projects, which is the main reason for the year-over-year decline in financing in December, with four projects with financing greater than $100 million: Swan, a bitcoin financial services company; LINE NEXT, an NFT business service provider; Arkon Energy, a bitcoin mining company; and MapleStory Universe, a blockchain gaming ecosystem.
b. The number of financings has remained flat, with only June-October 2023 averaging less than 90, based on the last 2 years of financing data. although total financings in December were down YoY, the number of financings increased rather than decreased.
c. The Bitcoin ecosystem investment and financing market has become significantly more active, with only 1–3 Bitcoin ecosystem projects completing funding each month compared to 7 in December: Tonka Finance ($2.5 million), BRC20.com.COM ($1.5 million), Tap Protocol ($4.2 million), Liquidium ($1.25 million), BitSmiley, Ordz Games, Dovi, BitSmiley, and Dovi. ($4.2 million), Liquidium ($1.25 million), BitSmiley, Ordz Games, and Dovi.
Specifically, there were no events in December that raised between $50 million and $100 million. notable projects in the $10–50 million range include the Layer1 blockchain Babylon, the on-chain shooter game Farcana, the Web3 authentication platform Dynamic, and Medallion, the Web3 music artist and fan platform.
The seed round is still the hottest, with 19 projects completing seed round financing in December, accounting for 44.19% of the total, down slightly from the previous month.
In addition, five mergers and acquisitions took place in December, and the head players in the crypto field are accelerating the pace of track layout, looking for high-quality targets to improve their strategic shortcomings to expand the ecological synergy effect.
II. Active investors
December saw a significant increase in investment activity from crypto institutions, with 12 investors making more than four moves, compared to five last month. Sora Ventures and NxGen were the top performers, with 6 outings.
Sora Ventures is a veteran organization founded in 2018 and has participated in 13 investment rounds in the past year. The organization has co-invested 4 times with Bitcoin Frontier Fund and 3 times with Coinbase Ventures, CMS Holdings, and Alliance DAO, and has invested most in tracks such as infrastructure, NFT, social entertainment, DeFi, and more.
Sora Ventures has been investing more in the Bitcoin ecosystem recently, with a portfolio that includes projects like BRC20.com, Tap Protocol, Liquidium, Ordz Games, Xverse, and more. Additionally, Sora Ventures was involved in the The Block merger last month, which may reflect Sora Ventures’ commitment to investing more in the crypto market.
NxGen is a multi-million dollar fund focused on supporting young crypto enthusiasts and talented builders. The organization has made nine investment rounds in the last year, with only one in the first half of the year and the majority after November, and NxGen has had several co-investments with Shima Capital, Alliance DAO, Formless Capital, Big Brain Holdings, M-Ventures, and LD Capital. NxGen had a high number of co-investments with Shima Capital, Alliance DAO, Formless Capital, Big Brain Holdings, M-Ventures, and LD Capital.
Some of the notable projects in which active investors participated in December were:
· Polygon Ventures: Farcana, Mocaverse, Babylon
· OKX Ventures: BitSmiley, Matr1x, Mocaverse, StarryNift, Babylon
· Polychain: Wynd Network, Rio Network, Babylon, Sona
· Animoca Brands: MetaFight, Farcana, Poglin
· Big Brain Holdings: Eclips, Fyde, Wynd Network
· 1kx: Web3mine, nftperp, Seam Social
III. Hot items
Based on RootData’s extensive user search data, we’ve also summarized some of the items that received the most attention in terms of user search volume in December, including:
1. Celestia
Celestia is a modular blockchain network whose goal is to build an extensible data availability layer that enables the next generation of scalable blockchain architectures — modular blockchains designed to make it easy for anyone to deploy their blockchain with minimal overhead. Celestia scales by decoupling execution from consensus and introducing new data availability sampling. Celestia scales by decoupling execution from consensus and introducing new data availability sampling.
2. Namada
Namada is a Layer 1 protocol that employs a proof-of-interest mechanism for asset-agnostic inter-chain privacy. Namada interoperates locally with fast-end chains via IBC and with Ethereum via a trustless two-way bridge. For privacy, Namada deploys an upgraded version of the Multi-Asset Shield Pool (MASP) circuit, which allows all assets to share a common set of shields. Namada is the first fractal instance of Anoma that deploys v1 of the Anoma protocol.
3. Pyth Network
The Pyth Network is a next-generation price prognosticator solution designed to make on-chain valuable financial market data, including cryptocurrencies, stocks, forex, and commodities, available to projects and protocols, as well as to the public, via blockchain technology. The network aggregates first-party price data from over 70 trusted data providers and publishes it for use in smart contracts and other on- or off-chain applications.
4. Marginfi
Marginfi is a decentralized portfolio margining protocol. The protocol provides traders with a unified account to access margins, form portfolios, and increase the capital efficiency of the underlying trading protocol.
5. Sleepless Al
Sleepless AI is an AI-based virtual companion game that utilizes AIGC and LLM to create rich story-based gameplay and organically developed interactions with characters. The project is currently developing three games, the first of which is HIM, a virtual boyfriend Otome game with an immutable and chained unique SBT character.
6. Wormhole
Wormhole is a decentralized universal messaging protocol that enables developers and users of cross-chain applications to take advantage of multiple ecosystems.
7. StarkNet
StarkNet is a license-free decentralized Validity-Rollup (also known as “ZK-Rollup”). It operates as an L2 network on Ether, enabling any dApp to achieve unlimited scale in its computation — without compromising Ether’s composability and security, thanks to StarkNet’s reliance on STARK, the most secure and scalable cryptographic proof-of-concept system.
8. MultiBit
The MultiBit Bridge provides a secure and efficient bridging mechanism that allows for the seamless transfer of tokens between the ETH chain, the BNB chain, and the BTC network. The MultiBit Bridge connects ERC20 tokens with BRC20 tokens, enhancing the liquidity of the BRC20 tokens and facilitating the growth and development of the Bitcoin ecosystem.
9. Injective
Injective is an interoperable Layer 1 blockchain powering the next generation of DeFi applications. Injective uniquely provides plug-and-play financial infrastructure primitives such as high-performance on-chain decentralized trading infrastructure, decentralized bridges, prophecy machines, and a composable smart contract layer with CosmWasm.
10. Portal
Portal is a cross-chain bridge that provides cross-chain transfer capabilities for wormhole-wrapped tokens and NFTs. Unlike many other cross-chain bridges, users can avoid double wrapping and never have to backtrack steps.
IV. Project developments
In December, RootsData also recorded many projects’ mainnet launches, new coin offerings, and other events to help users understand important project developments in the market and get a handle on earlier alpha opportunities. Among them, RootsData recorded 27 projects issuing tokens, a new high this year.
Projects online on Mainnet in December:
1. Infinex
Infinex is a decentralized perpetual contract trading platform launched by Synthetix. Infinex will generate revenue through several mechanisms, including additional transaction fees, integration fees through the Synthetix Integrators program, and fees from SNX LPing. All revenue generated will be used to accumulate more SNX, which means that as Infinex’s trading volume increases, so will Infinex’s SNX LP position.
2. Divergence
Divergence is a decentralized derivatives platform for volatility hedging and advanced financial products centered on blockchain-native asset prices. The Divergence team is currently developing a range of decentralized volatility derivatives and volatility index products designed to be the platform of choice for risk-averse users seeking to hedge their exposure to unilateral and bilateral volatility, for risk-tolerant users seeking to trade and gain leveraged exposure to volatility, and for risk-neutral users seeking to participate as a liquidity provider by funding the volatility market and earning fees. Users.
YLDR is a lending agreement structured specifically for liquidity providers, allowing anyone to enhance LP returns, borrow digital assets against LP positions or other assets, and provide liquidity to generate returns.
4. MainnetZ
MainnetZ is a layer1 blockchain that is fully EVM-compatible with cost-effective transactions and extremely fast speeds of up to 2000 TPS.
5. ZKFair
ZKFair is a community ZK-Rollup based on Polygon CDK and Celestia DA, powered by ZK-RaaS provider Lumoz. ZKFair uses the stablecoin USDC as gas tokens. 100% of the ZKF tokens will be airdropped to the community as soon as the mainnet is launched. After the ZKF tokens are airdropped, 100% of the L2 Gas Fee profits will be returned to the community.
Surf Protocol is a decentralized derivatives trading platform that supports the creation and trading of the widest range of crypto assets. Surf has implemented a unique profit-sharing strategy. The first user to create a pool will receive 5% of the pool’s transaction fees indefinitely, provided the pool stays above a set minimum threshold. Surf Protocol’s goal is to provide users with a wide range of tradable Perp assets while keeping fees as low as possible.
7. Alkimi
Alkimi is a decentralized ad trading platform that makes it possible to buy and sell ad space in a completely decentralized way via blockchain infrastructure. Alkimi is also a customized Layer 2 scaling solution on the Ethereum network, specifically for advertising. Utilizing the principles of generative economics, the Alkimi exchange will reward users, publishers, and advertisers for reestablishing the expected value exchange of the open network.
8. Nume
Nume is a Gas abstract, scalable, and secure Web3 payment aggregator with a native language customized for business. Nume Pay is the first product of Nume Crypto, which makes it incredibly easy and affordable for merchants/companies to accept cryptocurrency payments, and all operations on Nume are fully priced at a fixed fee. Nume also offers a web subscription that provides users with unlimited free operations for a fixed price of 1.99 DAI per month.
9. MilkyWay
MilkyWay is a liquidity pledge solution for the Celestia ecosystem, initially deployed and running on Osmosis, with long-term plans to migrate to Celestia’s toolkit for local milkTIA issuance. When users pledge TIA tokens for liquidity on MilkyWay, they receive an on-chain representation of the TIA pledge status, called milkTIA, which enables Celestia token holders to access the liquidity of their pledged assets to enable transactions or use them as collateral for various DeFi products.
10. Aori
Aori is a high-frequency, off-chain order book for market makers, providing non-custodial, on-chain settlement for spot trading. It provides market makers with several features: internal price pre-confirmation, no-gas order creation and cancellation, traditional limit order dynamics, and more.
11. Glow
Glow is creating Proof of Physical Work (PoPW) protocols for carbon credits that incentivize the creation of carbon credits by rewarding solar panel operators with tokens and displacing unclean energy from the grid.
12. Logearn
Logearn.com is a platform focused on automated replicated trading on the chain (supports derivatives, spot, NFT, tokens, DeFi, DEX, etc.).
13. Pharaoh Exchange
Pharaoh is a centralized liquidity DEX optimized for high-frequency LP and performance. The result is an ultra-efficient liquidity layer designed to attract the most efficient liquidity providers while providing traders with a clean and simple user experience.
14. Texture
Texture is an NFT lending platform on Solana that provides instant liquidity to Solana NFT holders in all markets. Texture users can borrow, defer, or repay NFT loans from any of the major Solana lenders such as Sharky, Citrus, or Rain.
15. Wildcat
Wildcat is an Ethereum lending protocol that allows borrowers to deploy undercollateralized lines of credit by parameterizing them as they wish. Lenders benefit from novel interest rates and ATM mechanisms.
Projects online on the Testnet in December:
1. Anzen
Anzen is a decentralized lending platform powered by decentralized lending that aims to bring stability to the DeFi space and provide more use cases for stablecoins. Users can lend on the platform to generate revenue backed by real-world assets (RWAs). Loans are collateralized by secure, tangible, and value-added assets that provide lenders with a predictable income stream tied to RWA performance.
The Over Protocol is a Layer 1 blockchain developed by Superblock and is based on a protocol called “Ethanos” that only considers active accounts to be valid, allowing the entire node to discard obsolete data and operate with less storage, thus reducing storage requirements. With Over, anyone can run a node on their home PC and become an authenticator.
3. Data Ownership Protocol
The Data Ownership Protocol (DOP) is leveraging Proof of Zero Knowledge to enable flexible transparency on top of Ether L1. DOP allows users and DApps to store assets and transact in privacy, or selectively disclose token holdings and historical information.
4. Pike Finance
Pike Finance is a native cross-chain lending marketplace that enables direct and secure interactions between different blockchains. Pike is built on top of Wormhole’s cross-chain data messaging protocol and Circle’s native USDC minting protocol, CCTP.
Projects with tokens going live in December:
1. SoBit (SOBB)
SoBit bridges BRC20 to Solana and is designed to seamlessly bridge BRC20 tokens to the Solana network. Users initiate the bridge by depositing BRC20 tokens into a dedicated SoBit address. The platform recognizes these deposits and mints the equivalent tokens on the Solana blockchain.
2. Reboot (GG)
Reboot Protocol is a decentralized, scalable framework for building skill games that reward players and developers.
NFPrompt (Non-Fungible Prompt) is a prompting artist platform in Web3 that allows users to incorporate their imagination into AI-generated NFT.NFPrompt offers 5 different AI-empowered creation tools for images, videos, pfp, music, and more, making it easy for anyone to create NFT. NFPrompt provides a platform for users to discover AI-generated artwork and a channel for creators and influencers to connect with their fans and share exclusive content and valuable information.
Aki Protocol is a data-driven consumer network for Web3 extensions focused on Web3 local influencer marketing. The network is dedicated to incubating the voice of web3 and empowering the industry with a quantifiable stream of information. Aki Protocol’s selection of high-quality project partners and data-driven, high-ROI influencer marketing can help project parties easily gain influence and expand their attention.
Eclipse Fi is a modular token distribution and liquidity solution that supports innovations in Cosmos and other platforms. Eclipse Fi provides a comprehensive modular solution for token and liquidity requirements, enabling projects to take responsibility for the entire token distribution process from the outset and to customize their distribution methodology and processes according to their distribution and liquidity requirements.
6. TonUP (UP)
TonUP is a launch pad on TON designed to identify and support groundbreaking projects in the cryptocurrency space.
7. Duckdao (DD)
DuckDAO is a decentralized incubator that helps promising projects realize their full potential by harnessing the investment power and creative potential of the community.
AIT Protocol is an AI data infrastructure that provides Web3 Artificial Intelligence solutions. The AIT decentralized marketplace offers an exceptional and extensive opportunity for millions of cryptocurrency users to participate in “train and earn” missions, a concept that simultaneously enables them to earn rewards and at the same time actively contribute to the development and evolution of artificial intelligence models.
Artifact is a gaming meta-universe with a Play-and-Earn economy that allows players to explore the meta-universe world, play games, display and trade NFTs, craft campaigns, and more.
Restake Finance is a protocol that introduces a modular liquidity pledge for EigenLayer. Restake Finance enables LST to be used as the crypto-economic security for the active verification service component of EigenLayer. The protocol allows users to earn Ether Pledge Rewards and EigenLayer Native Rewards without having to lock up assets or maintain a pledge infrastructure.
13. MainnetZ (NETZ)
MainnetZ is a layer1 blockchain that is fully EVM-compatible with cost-effective transactions and extremely fast speeds of up to 2000 TPS.
The Grapes is a fun and engaging NFT collection of 3,333 well-crafted NFTs generated from 200 emojis, headdresses, glasses, and more. It is a cross-media NFT project spanning games, animated series, merchandise, and licenses.NFT Created May 2023
15. Rebase (IRL)
Rebase is an AR adventure and M2E platform designed to bring the metaverse into the real world. Rebase’s core mechanism of geolocation technology essentially layers the virtual world on top of the real world. Combined with the use of Augmented Reality (AR), Rebase can gamify the NFT casting experience into an immersive and engaging treasure hunt. Rebase users will need to physically move around in the real world to locate and track the NFTs they wish to cast, and only if they can spot the NFTs through the AR lens, will they be able to successfully cast and collect the NFTs.
16. Capverse (CAP)
Set in an interstellar civilization, Capverse builds a Web 3.0-based virtual game world that allows players to own, use, and trade virtual NFT assets — Sumers. Sumers are native to Capverse worlds. Each Sumer is unique through a complex randomized algorithm that combines race, body parts, and skills. Different Sumers can be combined to form endless team configurations. Players can summon Sumers to team up and defeat the evil forces of the virus through pet battles for an entertaining and social experience.
17. Fusionist (ACE)
Fusionist is a game world featuring collectible NFTs and consists of 3 types of gameplay, Colonization (build simulation), Conquest (turn-based tactics) & Unity (explore, expand, exploit, destroy). Players will take on the role of mech commanders, running their planets, collecting rare resources, upgrading technology, scanning drawings to build mechs, and setting up production lines. Fight through PvP and PvE battles, build fleets of starships for interstellar wars, and conquer the galaxy. Endurance is Fusionist’s main network, geared towards the social and gaming infrastructure layer.
Talis Protocol is an NFT marketplace that empowers artists and bridges physical and digital art in the Cosmos ecosystem.
Seamless Protocol is a decentralized, non-custodial liquidity marketplace that creates a more seamless experience for both sides of the market (liquidity providers and liquidity borrowers). Seamless Protocol aims to unlock under-collateralized borrowing through the innovative concept of an integrated liquidity marketplace. This community-driven protocol inherits the security of audited smart contracts forked from AAVE and Ampleforth.
20. Jito (JTO)
Jito Labs builds high-performance MEV infrastructure for Solana. It is designed to increase Solana’s efficiency and minimize the negative impact of MEV on users.
21. Inspect (INSP)
Inspect is a Web3 social data protocol for navigating the complex fabric of cryptocurrency, NFT, and blockchain technology. A pioneering hub for comprehensive insights, trend analysis, and community engagement, Inspect is dedicated to empowering cryptocurrency enthusiasts, investors, and creators. The platform provides real-time analytics, tracks performance metrics, and delivers actionable insights.
22. 5ireChain (5IRE)
5ire is a sustainable Layer 1 blockchain that rewards its verifiers and customers for taking sustainable actions.
23. xPET (xPET)
xPet.Tech combines the fun of virtual pet ownership with the transformative power of blockchain technology. Users install its extension and receive pets directly from the X interface, earning money for caring for them.
Due to space limitations, the above is part of the main network and token information. For more complete and timely information, please visit RootData’s official website: https://www.rootdata.com/.
