RootData July Crypto Market Data Summary: Funding Amount and Number of Deals Both Rebound, OKX Ventures and CMS Holdings Most Active
In July 2024, BTC dropped from its high of $71,000 to around $53,000, but crypto investment and financing data still maintained a stable upward trend. The total financing amount reached $1.01 billion, with over 112 financing deals, representing month-on-month growth of 36% and 10.89% respectively.
In this article, we will focus on specific financing data, active investors, trending projects, and other aspects to present the changing trends in the crypto market.
I. Fundraising Data
In July, the total financing amount in the cryptocurrency sector was $1.01 billion, a 36% month-on-month increase and an 83.6% year-on-year increase. The number of financing deals was 112, a 10.89% month-on-month increase and a 36.6% year-on-year increase. The growth rates of both total financing amount and number of deals showed a slight upward trend compared to the previous month. Bitcoin mining company Iris Energy raised $413.4 million through stock issuance, becoming the largest financing event of the month and the main factor behind the surge in financing amounts. Other popular projects that completed financing include the open-source AI model Sentient, payment clearing and settlement blockchain platform Partior, Base game ecosystem B3, on-chain data infrastructure product Allium, Bitcoin DeFi platform Lombard, and others.
In terms of financing amounts and rounds, the $1–3 million range accounted for the largest proportion of deals, with the seed round still being the most popular financing round, with 35 projects completing seed round financing. Notable projects include Monad’s native MEV infrastructure aPriori, AI infrastructure OpenLedger, distributed cloud computing company Prodia, and decentralized AI infrastructure Mira.
In terms of categories, infrastructure received about $365 million in funding in July, accounting for about one-third of the total venture capital of $1.01 billion. This was followed by the DeFi sector with $67.15 million, and tools and information services with $48.9 million. Additionally, the NFT and DAO each completed only one financing deal.
Furthermore, there were 7 M&A events in July. Bitcoin mining company Riot Blockchain acquired Bitcoin mining infrastructure and hosting services company Block Mining for $92.5 million, ConsenSys acquired crypto account plugin Wallet Guard, and CoinDCX acquired UAE cryptocurrency platform BitOasis.
II. Active Investors
OKX Ventures and CMS Holdings were the most active venture capital firms in July, each making 7 investments. OKX Ventures invested in Web3 DePIN project Multiple Network, MEV infrastructure aPriori, compute tokenization protocol Compute Labs, and others. CMS Holdings invested in peer-to-peer lending protocol Liquidium, Bitcoin stablecoin protocol Satoshi Protocol, Monad token and NFT launch platform Monad Pad, and others.
Additionally, Robot Ventures made 6 investments in July, including Solana shared sequencer network Rome Protocol, EVM-compatible zero-knowledge rollup platform Zircuit, multi-chain search engine Dora, and others. Following closely in activity were Folius Ventures, SNZ Holding, and Framework Ventures, each making 5 investments.
Web3 investor and advisor Paul Taylor also invested in 4 projects in July, becoming the most active individual investor of the month. Web3 investor Santiago Roel Santos and Movement co-founder Rushi Manche also made investments.
In terms of new crypto fundraising, Galaxy Ventures completed a $113 million fundraising, focusing on investing in early-stage startups in crypto software, infrastructure, and financial applications. The fund expects to reach its target of $150 million next year and will invest $3–5 million in each project. It has already invested in projects such as Ethena, Monad, and Plume.
On July 19, Bitrue Ventures also announced the launch of a $40 million investment fund, focusing on areas such as GameFi, DePIN, and RWA. On July 8, cryptocurrency market maker Auros announced it would invest $50 million in crypto startups through its newly established Auros Ventures. Additionally, TON ecosystem click-to-earn game Notcoin announced the launch of the Telegram Gaming Accelerator, aiming to empower Telegram mini-apps with blockchain technology.
III. Trending Projects
Based on a large amount of user search data from RootData, we have also summarized some of the most searched projects in July, including:
1. Fuel
Fuel is a UTXO-based modular execution layer that brings globally accessible scale to Ethereum. As a modular execution layer, Fuel can achieve global throughput in ways that monolithic chains cannot while inheriting Ethereum’s security.
Plume is a modular L2 blockchain built for all real-world assets (RWA), integrating asset tokenization and compliance providers directly into the chain. Its mission is to simplify the complex process of RWA project deployment and provide investors with a blockchain ecosystem to interact and invest in various RWAs. Additionally, Plume enables RWA composability through its thriving DeFi applications and provides high-quality buyer channels to increase liquidity for all tokenized RWAs.
3. Movement
Movement is a modular framework for building and deploying Move-based infrastructure, applications, and blockchains in any distributed environment. The team is building a suite of products and services that allow non-Move protocols to leverage the power of the Move programming language without writing a line of Move code. Their first release, M1, redefines L1 as a vertically composable and horizontally scalable Layer 1 framework that is Solidity compatible, connects EVM and Move liquidity, and allows builders to customize modular and interoperable appchains with different user bases and liquidity out of the box.
4. Allora
Allora is a self-improving decentralized AI network. Allora aims to provide smarter and more secure AI for applications through a network of self-improving machine-learning models. By combining cutting-edge research in crowdsourcing mechanisms like peer prediction, federated learning, and zkML, Allora unlocks an enormous new application design space at the intersection of cryptocurrency and AI.
5. Usual
Usual is a stablecoin protocol whose USD is a permissionless and fully compliant stablecoin backed 1:1 by real-world assets (RWA). USUAL is a governance token that allows the community to guide the network’s future development. Usual addresses current stablecoin market issues by redistributing profits to the community and rewarding token holders with actual yields generated by RWAs.
6. Sonic
Sonic is a Solana-based game chain that proposes the first scaling architecture HyperGrid, which can help game developers efficiently process and manage game states, logic, and events. Sonic is 100% compatible with all EVM smart contracts and has a native game engine, providing game developers with comprehensive On-Chain game development components.
7. ORA
ORA is a verifiable oracle protocol that brings AI and complex computations on-chain. ORA breaks the limitations of smart contracts with richer data sources and computational power, allowing developers to innovate freely. ORA has two main products: AI Oracle (OAO): bringing AI on-chain; ZK Oracle: bringing complex computations and historical data on-chain.
8. Aleo
Aleo is a developer platform for building fully private, scalable, and cost-effective applications. Using zero-knowledge cryptography, Aleo moves smart contract execution off-chain to enable a wide range of decentralized applications that are both completely private and can scale to thousands of transactions per second.
9. Symbiotic
Symbiotic is a universal re-staking system that allows decentralized networks to bootstrap powerful, fully sovereign ecosystems. It will provide a way for decentralized applications to collectively secure each other called active validator services (AVS). Users will be able to re-stake assets they’ve already deposited in other crypto protocols to help secure these AVSs (whether rollups, interoperability infrastructure, or oracles) in exchange for rewards.
10. Monad
Monad is building a high-performance Layer 1 blockchain for the next generation of decentralized applications. Its mission is to accelerate the disruptive force of decentralization by building a blockchain that is 100 to 1000 times faster than the closest competitors, alleviating the severe bottlenecks in existing blockchains and enabling more complex applications and wider adoption.
11. Solv Protocol
Solv is a decentralized Bitcoin reserve protocol that unlocks the full potential of Bitcoin assets through liquidity consensus infrastructure. By solving the fragmentation, yield opportunities, and custody solutions for BTC assets, Solv provides Bitcoin holders with a gateway to BTCFi, constantly building pathways and confidence for traditional funds to enter the crypto world.
12. io.net
io.net is a decentralized computing network that supports developing, executing, and scaling ML applications on the Solana blockchain, combining 1 million GPUs to form the world’s largest GPU cluster and DePIN. io.net aggregates GPUs from underutilized resources (e.g., independent data centers, crypto miners, and crypto projects like Filecoin, Render, etc.) to solve this problem, combined in a decentralized physical infrastructure network (DePIN) that allows engineers to access massive compute power in an accessible, customizable, cost-effective, and easy-to-implement system.
13. Sunrise
Sunrise is a dedicated data availability (DA) layer for Proof of Liquidity, allowing developers to build next-generation Web applications with enhanced liquidity and sovereignty.
14. Berachain
Berachain is a high-performance EVM-compatible blockchain built on Proof of Liquidity consensus. Proof of Liquidity is a novel consensus mechanism designed to align network incentives, creating strong synergies between Berachain validators and the project ecosystem. Berachain’s technology is built on top of Polaris, a high-performance blockchain framework for building EVM-compatible chains on top of the CometBFT consensus engine.
15. Babylon
Babylon is a layer 1 blockchain founded by Stanford University Professor David Tse. The project’s mission is to bring Bitcoin’s unparalleled security to all PoS blockchains without any additional energy costs. The team consists of researchers and experienced developers from Stanford University, as well as experienced business advisors.
16. Conduit
Conduit is a crypto-native infrastructure platform designed to empower and accelerate builders in the crypto space. Its first product allows teams to launch production-grade Rollups based on OP Stack in a short time, scaling their application performance by 100x. Application-specific Rollups on Conduit are launched, maintained, and scaled by infrastructure professionals so that teams can focus on what matters most: building products that users love.
17. Zircuit
Zircuit is an EVM-compatible zero-knowledge rollup. The network’s unique hybrid architecture combines optimistic infrastructure with zero-knowledge proofs, offering developers the best of both worlds. With cutting-edge performance and security at the sequencer level, users can explore new frontiers with faster transactions, lower fees, and complete peace of mind. Zircuit will protect users at the sequencer level by monitoring malicious transactions in the mempool and preventing them from being included in blocks.
MapleStory Universe is a virtual world ecosystem that creates various tangible and intangible values centered on MapleStory NFTs.
19. Karak
Karak is a risk management infrastructure for digital assets. It is a secure, low-cost, risk-aware Ethereum L2 designed to protect the next billion users.
20. Nubit
Nubit is a scalable Bitcoin-native data availability layer secured by Bitcoin. Nubit is capable of scaling Bitcoin’s data capacity without compromise, empowering applications such as Ordinals, Layer 2s, price oracles, and indexers, thereby broadening the scope and efficiency of the Bitcoin ecosystem. It leverages innovative consensus algorithms and the Lightning Network, inheriting Bitcoin’s fully censorship-resistant properties.
IV. Project Dynamics
In July, RootData also recorded many events such as mainnet launches and new token issuances, helping users understand important project dynamics in the market and grasp earlier alpha opportunities.
Projects that launched mainnet in July include (sorted by date from recent to distant, incomplete statistics):
1. Eclipse
Eclipse is a customizable rollup provider compatible with multiple Layer 1. The platform enables developers to deploy their rollups powered by the Solana operating system, using any chain for security or data storage.
2. dumpy.fun
dumpy.fun allows users to short memecoins on Solana. Under the hood, dumpy.fun borrows on Save and then trades on Jupiter.
Pear Protocol is a decentralized spread trading platform that allows users to create leveraged long and short positions on different assets. Spread trading refers to when investors can short one asset while going long on another.
Mansa Finance is a real-world asset (RWA) DeFi fixed-income protocol that provides short-term liquidity to venture-backed African fintechs through invoice discounting, asset leasing, inventory financing, and payroll.
5. Ostium
Ostium is a synthetic asset protocol that provides on-chain commodity exposure for institutional and retail traders and hedgers.
6. Avail
Avail is a modular blockchain focused on data availability: ordering and recording blockchain transactions with proofs of data availability without downloading entire blocks. This allows it to scale in ways that monolithic blockchains cannot. Off-chain scaling solutions can unlock their full potential by offloading data availability to Avail. Independent chains can improve validator security by using Avail to ensure data availability.
7. Prerich
Prerich is an application that simplifies on-chain trading, offering a Robinhood-like user-friendly interface. It allows users to trade on-chain assets quickly and efficiently while maintaining full control over their assets. With Prerich, users can log in using email, credit cards, and access tools built specifically for traders while maintaining full control of their private keys.
8. Deq.fi
Deq.fi is the native liquid staking platform for Avail tokens on Ethereum.
9. FILLiquid
FILLiquid is a decentralized liquidity pool on Filecoin that optimizes staking, earning, and empowering storage through lending solutions.
10. FireUp Finance
FireUp Finance is a non-custodial, high-frequency options trading platform designed to trade short-term price movements.
11. OpenLiquidity
OpenLiquidity is a peer-to-peer decentralized protocol designed to unlock the potential of locked liquidity in the DeFi ecosystem. Through sales, auctions, and using locked liquidity as loan collateral, OpenLiquidity offers new interaction opportunities for locked liquidity owners and investors.
12. Dropnest
Dropnest is a one-stop airdrop application that provides users with a one-click airdrop interaction experience. Dropnest transfers users’ funds into secure smart vaults and then hands them over to Dropnest farmers. Dropnest handles all the heavy lifting by interacting with protocols on behalf of users. When protocols release airdrops, Dropnest returns users’ initial investments along with their share of airdrop rewards.
13. Mind Network
Mind Network is the FHE re-staking layer for POS and AI networks. Its framework runs as an FHE validation network, bringing secure computation and consensus to AI, DePIN, EigenLayer AVS, Bittensor Subnet, and many critical POS networks.
14. DUCATA
DUCATA is a programmatic form of money based on the Reflexivity protocol, enabled by a triple token economy that solves the stablecoin trilemma and aims to be a global alternative to traditional currencies. DUCA provides a stable fiat alternative that is fully autonomous, on-chain, and decentralized, capable of maintaining purchasing power and providing yield to holders.
15. Creator.Bid
Creator.Bid is a digital content monetization and ownership platform that supports content creators in building AI-driven digital assets for content monetization and writing management. Additionally, Creator.bid provides tools to enhance creators’ autonomy in managing their work and income.
16. Usual
Usual is a stablecoin protocol whose USD is a permissionless and fully compliant stablecoin backed 1:1 by real-world assets (RWA). USUAL is a governance token that allows the community to guide the network’s future development. Usual addresses current stablecoin market issues by redistributing profits to the community and rewarding token holders with actual yields generated by RWAs.
17. PumpBTC
PumpBTC is a liquid staking protocol on Babylon that allows BTC HODLers to maximize their yields.
18. Kernel Protocol
Karak Network is a re-staking protocol that allows users to deposit any asset into the platform to provide slashable security for various products and services built on Karak, such as data availability layers, blockchains, oracles, etc. Kernel Protocol proposes a solution to create liquid re-staking tokens (LRTs) composed of indices of each major asset class on Karak. This reduces liquidity fragmentation compared to making specific LRTs for each asset, while also providing sufficient asset selection variation for end LRT users, reflecting the diversity of re-staking opportunities available on Karak.
Projects that launched testnets in July include (sorted by date from recent to distant, incomplete statistics):
1. Movement
Movement is a modular framework for building and deploying Move-based infrastructure, applications, and blockchains in any distributed environment. The team is building a suite of products and services that allow non-Move protocols to leverage the power of the Move programming language without writing a line of Move code. Their first release, M1, redefines L1 as a vertically composable and horizontally scalable Layer 1 framework that is Solidity compatible, connects EVM and Move liquidity, and allows builders to customize modular and interoperable appchains with different user bases and liquidity out of the box.
2. Cysic
Cysic is a ZK hardware acceleration project dedicated to designing advanced ASIC chips to help reduce ZK-proof generation time. It already has multiple ecosystem partners, including Scroll, Nil Foundation, and Hyper Oracle.
3. Morpheus
Morpheus aims to incentivize the first peer-to-peer network of personal general artificial intelligence that can execute smart contracts on behalf of users, called smart agents. Eventually, average users will be able to talk to their smart agents in normal language, having them understand issues and take action based on their intent/approval.
4. Tren Finance
Tren Finance is a liquidity platform for long-tail crypto assets. By supporting niche assets as collateral, Tren Finance aims to unlock higher capital efficiency for a wide range of crypto assets.
5. NOWChain
NOWChain is a blockchain ecosystem that combines blockchain technology with the inherent security of mobile devices, where $NOW is the fundamental unit of value for the NOWChain ecosystem and its interconnected platforms and affiliates.
Novastro Chain is a gamified L3 that achieves parallel re-staking with EigenLayer AVS, bringing Ethereum’s security to RWA and DeFi projects. It enhances re-staking capabilities, allowing users to earn rewards and increase yields while protecting deposits. Novastro pioneers the integration of real-world assets, gamification, and crypto culture to inspire and revolutionize community rewards.
Plume is a modular L2 blockchain built for all real-world assets (RWA), integrating asset tokenization and compliance providers directly into the chain. Its mission is to simplify the complex process of RWA project deployment and provide investors with a blockchain ecosystem to interact and invest in various RWAs. Additionally, Plume enables RWA composability through its thriving DeFi applications and provides high-quality buyer channels to increase liquidity for all tokenized RWAs.
8. Kakarot
Kakarot is a zkEVM written in Cairo. It aims to allow users to take advantage of the scaling benefits of validity rollups while maintaining compatibility with the Ethereum ecosystem. As such, Kakarot can be used to run Ethereum smart contracts on Starknet.
9. Highlayer
Highlayer is a sovereign rollup on Bitcoin with self-sustaining DA, parallel execution, and Javascript VM, seamlessly connecting global developers to Web3.
Projects that launched tokens in July include (sorted by date from recent to distant):
Augment is a blockchain-based marketplace for B2B clients to access GPU compute resources with on-chain energy verification capabilities.
2. Layer3 (L3)
Layer3 is an all-chain identity and distribution protocol where crypto consumers discover new projects and projects that reward their on-chain activity. By aggregating user activity across multiple chains and dApps, Layer3 generates a unified view of users’ on-chain identities and enables highly targeted, efficient token distribution. Projects built on Layer3 can programmatically route tokens to the right users at the right time based on various criteria such as time triggers, asset ownership, on-chain activity, credentials, social graphs, and task engagement.
AVACOIN is a Telegram application that started as a click-to-earn game and has since incorporated elements of gaming, staking, and mining.
Outlanders is an adventure-based game where players can battle monsters and other creatures for territorial supremacy. Outlanders aims to cater to both crypto-native gamers and non-crypto power users. Players can earn better clothes and weapons by defeating monsters and other competitors, leading to drops in the form of NFTs or other crypto assets.
5. Ajuna (AJUN)
Ajuna is a decentralized gaming platform. The platform brings blockchain gaming into the mainstream by integrating with the world’s leading development engines, Unreal and Unity. Built on Substrate, Ajuna leverages the full potential of the Polkadot ecosystem, providing developers with a modular toolbox to build on-chain functionality into their games. Ajuna’s ultimate goal is to create true value for gamers and developers by providing a fully interoperable decentralized ecosystem for games and virtual goods.
6. Fautor (FTR)
Fautor is a Web 3.0 creator-fan economy ecosystem that redefines NFT as Neo Fan Tracker, maximizing blockchain technology to provide creators and fans with a brand new fan community experience.
WorldBrain is an artificial intelligence infrastructure that leverages Web3 technology to empower artificial intelligence ideas and create truly universal AI. In WorldBrain’s architecture, each smartphone or other smart device acts as a DePIN (Decentralized AI Node), not only performing data processing and storage functions but also transmitting and sharing information through the network. This design enhances the strength and flexibility of the network, with each node acting as both a provider and receiver of information, forming a highly dynamic and decentralized ecosystem. WorldBrain’s approach fundamentally differs from traditional large language models (such as the GPT series). Instead of relying on massive text data for learning, it simulates the structure and function of the human brain, enabling WorldBrain to perform complex abstract thinking, emotional cognition, contextual understanding, and more flexible creative thinking.
Dedium is a decentralized node network that provides access to GPU resources for various computational tasks. Leveraging idle GPUs’ untapped potential, including those of gamers and miners, in exchange for Dedi tokens. Dedium aims to democratize access to GPU resources and unlock new possibilities for decentralized computing.
Unlighted is a battle royale game fused with blockchain, where players meet in survival and farming, and every victory is a bloody bounty.
Tornado Blast is a Blast L2 native bot for trading and sniping tokens. Users can earn $BLAST, $TRNDO, and revenue share rewards.
Blocklords is a medieval strategy MMO that interweaves world-building with real-time combat, deep historical fantasy lore, and a detailed lineage system. Players will be able to own their hero characters and, through the game’s dynasty system, continue their lineage through heirs, spreading across the world and creating their unique bloodlines and legacies.
12. Avail (AVAIL)
Avail is a modular blockchain focused on data availability: ordering and recording blockchain transactions with proofs of data availability without downloading entire blocks. This allows it to scale in ways that monolithic blockchains cannot. Off-chain scaling solutions can unlock their full potential by offloading data availability to Avail. Independent chains can improve validator security by using Avail to ensure data availability.
For more complete and timely data information, please visit the RootData official website.
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