Highlights of this episode
According to incomplete statistics from PANews, there were 13 investment and financing events in the global blockchain sector last week (May 11-17), with a total funding scale exceeding US$530 million . A summary is as follows:
- Three investment and financing events were announced in the DeFi sector, including Eleutheria, a DeFi platform in the BNB ecosystem, which completed a $5 million strategic round of financing, with Alpha Capital participating in the investment;
- Web3+AI announced two investment and financing events, including the completion of a $15 million financing round for AI trading lab Nof1, co-led by SUI Group and Karatage;
- The Infrastructure & Tools sector announced five investment and financing events, including blockchain analytics company Elliptic raising $120 million, valuing the company at $670 million.
- Three investment and financing events were announced in the centralized finance sector, including the completion of a $51 million Series B funding round for stablecoin bank Fastet, with SBI Group and others participating.
DeFi
Stablecoin yield project Osero raises $13.5 million, led by Sky Ecosystem.
Osero, a stablecoin yield infrastructure project, has completed a $13.5 million funding round led by Sky Ecosystem (formerly MakerDAO), with participation from Plasma. The entire funding round was structured in the form of a future token protocol (SAFT), and the valuation was not disclosed. Incubated by Stablewatch, a stablecoin yield data and risk control platform, Osero focuses on providing savings infrastructure for Sky's stablecoins USDS (formerly DAI) and sUSDS. Through the Osero App and Osero Earn, it provides individuals and institutions with access to Sky Savings Rate and integrates with wallets, banks, and exchanges. The company has allocated $10 million of the funding as a risk reserve to buffer potential losses, and related deployments will adhere to Sky's risk assessment framework based on Basel III.
Eleutheria, a decentralized finance platform within the BNB ecosystem, announced the completion of a $5 million strategic funding round, with participation from Alpha Capital. Valuation information has not yet been disclosed. The new funds will support its efforts to build on-chain financial services through trustless code-driven DeFi and tamper-proof smart contracts.
Stablecoin startup Boundary Labs has raised $2 million in pre-seed funding, led by Galaxy Ventures, with participation from First Block Capital and BlackWood, among others. The company plans to launch its institutional-facing "verifiable" stablecoin, USBD, on the Ethereum mainnet in early summer 2026. Boundary co-founder and CEO Matthew Mezger stated that USBD is designed around "continuous on-chain verifiability" of reserves, net asset value, and protocol performance, providing daily system state reports, including overcollateralization levels and real-time NAV calculations, aiming to shift stablecoins from a trust-based model to a trustless tool.
USBD itself does not generate interest, but the protocol will provide a separate staking token, sUSBD, allowing eligible institutional participants to earn protocol revenue through neutral hedging DeFi strategies. Protocol revenue will be used to build a treasury reserve, fund operations, and distribute rewards to sUSBD stakers through an on-chain distribution system.
AI
AI trading lab Nof1 raises $15 million in funding, co-led by SUI Group and Karatage.
AI trading lab Nof1 is attracting attention from Wall Street, with its Alpha Arena platform testing the autonomous trading capabilities of cutting-edge models from companies like OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and xAI in real-world markets. Reports indicate that Nasdaq-listed SUI Group and London-based hedge fund Karatage co-led a $15 million funding round for Nof1 and also invested in AI startup Recursive Superintelligence. Nof1 states that its Alpha Arena project trains AI models in real-world funding environments for risk control, position management, and market adaptation. The company plans to launch a consumer-facing market coding agent platform after the second quarter.
Charms, an AI-driven role asset economy platform, has raised $1.5 million in pre-seed funding.
Charms, an AI-driven character asset economy platform, has completed a $1.5 million pre-seed funding round. Investors include Lattice Fund, Base Ecosystem Fund, and JME Ventures. Charms is a "living asset" platform that deeply integrates AI characters with the on-chain economy, transforming emotional interactions into tradable digital assets. Users can create, interact with, own, and monetize AI-driven characters.
Infrastructure & Tools
USDC issuer Circle raised $222 million in its pre-sale of native tokens for its new public blockchain, Arc, valuing the network at approximately $3 billion in a fully diluted manner. The round was led by a16z crypto, with participation from about ten institutions including BlackRock, Apollo Funds, ICE (the parent company of the NYSE), SBI Group, Janus Henderson, Standard Chartered Ventures, and ARK Invest. Arc is positioned as a public blockchain targeting institutional finance. Circle holds 25% of the initial 10 billion token supply and plans to generate revenue through validator operations, including transaction fees and staking income. 60% of the tokens will be distributed to participants building and using the Arc network, with 15% held as a long-term reserve. Circle also announced plans to launch tools and services around Arc that support AI agents using USDC for transactions and payments.
It is reported that a16z invested $75 million in Circle's Arc Network.
Blockchain analytics firm Elliptic raises $120 million to value the company at $670 million.
According to Bloomberg, blockchain analytics firm Elliptic has completed a $120 million funding round, valuing the company at approximately $670 million. The round was led by One Peak Partners, with participation from Deutsche Bank, Nasdaq's venture capital arm, and British Business Bank. Existing investors, including JPMorgan Chase, also participated. Founded in 2013, Elliptic provides crypto transaction monitoring and anti-money laundering, sanctions compliance tools to financial institutions and law enforcement agencies. Currently, the company screens over 1 billion transactions weekly for more than 700 clients to support the compliant operations required for large banks, asset management firms, and fintech companies conducting digital asset business.
Financial infrastructure platform Stitch has raised $25 million in Series A funding, led by a16z.
Financial infrastructure platform Stitch announced the completion of a $25 million Series A funding round, led by a16z, with participation from Arbor Ventures, COTU Ventures, Raed VC, and SVC. Stitch stated that financial institutions are currently slow to launch and unable to keep up with AI development due to fragmented legacy systems. Stitch addresses this issue by providing a unified platform and APIs through a unified ledger, financial primitives, and workflows.
Turnkey, a cryptocurrency wallet and key management infrastructure company, has raised $12.5 million in strategic funding, with participation from Archetype, Circle Ventures, and existing investors, bringing its total funding to over $65 million. Bain Capital Crypto, Galaxy Ventures, Sequoia Capital, Variant, and Lightspeed Faction also participated in this round. The new funds will primarily be used to develop and publicly launch Turnkey Verifiable Cloud, a secure computing platform for digital assets and sensitive workloads.
Founded by former Coinbase Custody employees Bryce Ferguson and Jack Kearney, Turnkey's infrastructure is currently used in scenarios such as non-custodial wallets, automated on-chain transactions, and policy-controlled signatures. Its clients include Flutterwave, World App, Polymarket, and Anchorage Digital.
Digital Asset Clearing Center (DACC), a tokenized financial market infrastructure, announced the completion of a $10 million strategic financing round. Investors included Conflux, Global InfoTech, Fosun International, Blockstone, Avior Capital, Fintech World, Satoshi Ventures, and BridgeTower. DACC currently provides end-to-end "Clearing-as-a-Service" services to financial institutions, and the new funding will support its efforts to build a compliant financial settlement and clearing infrastructure.
Centralized Finance
Fasset, a new stablecoin-driven bank, has completed a $51 million Series B funding round, with participation from Japan's SBI Group, Investcorp, and Turkish asset management firm Arz Portföy. The specific valuation was not disclosed. Fasset stated that the new funds will be used to expand into more markets, develop lending and trade finance products for SMEs, and expand its stablecoin payment and custody infrastructure, "Own Network."
Headquartered in Los Angeles, Fasset currently operates over 50 payment gateways across Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, facilitating cross-border transfers using stablecoins. The company claims its platform covers 125 countries, serves over 1,000 small and medium-sized enterprises, and has an annualized transaction volume exceeding $32 billion. Furthermore, Fasset previously partnered with Tether to launch a new gold-backed bank card product pegged to tokenized assets.
Augustus, a new type of bank, has obtained a national banking license from the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) and completed a $40 million funding round. Founded in 2022, the bank already holds a European license, enabling it to clear cross-border euro transactions. Its clients include the cryptocurrency exchange Kraken, and its annual processing volume reaches billions of euros, growing tenfold year-on-year. The OCC has previously issued such licenses only to a limited number of institutions; others, such as Ripple, have mostly held restricted trust licenses. Augustus plans to restructure its cross-border clearing system using AI and stablecoins, bypassing the traditional correspondent banking model that relies on manual approval. Its management team includes former OCC executives and former JPMorgan management.
Bitcoin custody platform Onramp has completed a $12.5 million Series A funding round, valuing the company at $135 million pre-money. The round was led by Early Riders, whose CEO, Michael Tanguma, is also a partner. Onramp employs a multi-custodian custody model, requiring authorization from multiple custodians before Bitcoin assets can be transferred. Its partner custodians include BitGo, Coincover, and Tetra Trust. Currently, its clients are primarily high-net-worth individuals and family offices. Future plans include licensing its custody infrastructure to banks, fintech companies, and exchanges, and expanding into corporate treasury tools, Bitcoin IRAs, payment cards, and cash accounts.
DAT
French listed company Capital B (ALCPB) announced the completion of a €15.2 million funding round, with investors including global institutional investors as well as strategic investors Adam Back and TOBAM, to accelerate its Bitcoin Treasury strategy.
Equity Acquisition
According to Yonhap News Agency, citing sources, Korea Investment & Securities is working with global cryptocurrency exchange OKX to jointly acquire a stake in cryptocurrency exchange Coinone. The two companies are discussing each acquiring approximately 20% of the shares, likely through a new share issuance to maximize capital inflow. This investment is expected to be purely financial, and Coinone's management will remain unchanged. Coinone's current major shareholders include The One Group (34.30%), Com2us Holdings (21.95%), and CEO Cha Myung-hoon (19.14%).
Hana Financial Group will invest approximately 1 trillion won (about US$667 million) to acquire a 6.55% stake in Dunamu, the operator of the South Korean cryptocurrency exchange Upbit.
