Highlights of this episode
The number of crypto venture capital deals fell to around 50 in May, the lowest level since 2021. Investor attention has structurally shifted to AI, while the crypto sector has failed to generate early-stage opportunities of the scale seen in the 2021 and 2024 cycles.
According to incomplete statistics from PANews, there were 5 investment and financing events in the global blockchain sector last week (June 1-7), with a total funding scale exceeding US$84 million . A summary is as follows:
- The Infrastructure & Tools sector announced one investment and financing event: Web3 asset management platform XEFFY completed a $20 million funding round, which will be used to expand its Vault and RWA infrastructure.
- Two investment and financing events were announced in the centralized finance sector. SignalPlus completed a $50 million Series B1 financing round at a valuation of $500 million, led by HashKey Capital.
- The prediction market announced two investment and financing events, including a $4 million strategic investment in K25.ai by US-listed company NewGenIVF .
- Five equity acquisitions were announced, including Robinhood's $180 million acquisition of WonderFi, marking its entry into the Canadian crypto market.
Infrastructure & Tools
Web3 asset management platform XEFFY has raised $20 million to expand its Vault and RWA infrastructure.
Web3 asset management platform XEFFY announced the completion of a $20 million funding round, including a $5 million angel round and a $15 million private round supported by early strategic investors. The funds will be used to develop its Vault management platform, expand its on-chain real-world asset (RWA) infrastructure, and support early-stage RWA projects through the XEFFY Fund to expand its global ecosystem. The platform combines a market-neutral Vault strategy with dedicated on-chain RWA infrastructure built for retail and institutional users.
Currently, the tokenized RWA market size has exceeded $30 billion by 2025, with institutions such as BlackRock and Fidelity having deployed related products. The XEFFY platform has approximately 200,000 community members on X, Telegram, and Discord, and its Asia-Pacific Ambassador Program has about 200 contributors.
Centralized Finance
SignalPlus, a provider of institutional-grade digital asset options and derivatives trading infrastructure, has completed a $50 million Series B1 funding round, valuing the company at $500 million post-money. The round was led by HashKey Capital, with participation from BlockBooster and AppWorks. Goldman Sachs served as the exclusive financial advisor. Headquartered in Hong Kong, SignalPlus focuses on building institutional-grade derivatives trading infrastructure for the increasingly integrated capital markets. Its platform provides hedge funds, market makers, proprietary trading teams, and asset management firms with professional options analysis, real-time risk management, and trade execution tools, covering both digital assets and traditional financial markets.
WasabiCard, a global stablecoin payment infrastructure platform, announced the completion of its Pre-A round of financing, with participation from Vision Plus Capital and 01VC. Including its previous Seed round led by Vernal Capital and followed by Avenir Group, WasabiCard has raised nearly $10 million in total. The new funding will primarily be used for expanding its global payment infrastructure, developing stablecoin cards and payout capabilities, expanding its enterprise customer base, and for compliance and product development. WasabiCard also plans to further advance its AI Agent payments and programmable global payment workflows.
WasabiCard is dedicated to bridging stablecoins with real-world financial scenarios, providing enterprises, platforms, and internet-native companies with infrastructure for global card issuance, enterprise payouts, multi-currency settlements, and stablecoin payments. To date, the company has served over 500 enterprise clients, issued over 500,000 cards, processed over $1 billion in transactions, and integrated with multiple blockchains including Avalanche, Arbitrum, and BNB Chain. It recently joined the Circle Alliance Program.
Prediction Market
US-listed company NewGenIVF invests an additional $4 million in K25.ai.
Nasdaq-listed NewGenIVF Group Limited announced an additional $4 million strategic investment in K25.ai, an AI-native live streaming and prediction market platform, bringing its total investment to $6 million and implying a $100 million valuation. As part of the strategic investment transaction, K25.ai founder and CEO Andy Cheung and two co-founders will join NewGen's board of directors. The new funding will be used to accelerate platform product development and drive the integration of AI with live streaming, digital assets, and prediction markets.
Nova Markets, an on-chain capital and prediction market infrastructure project, announced the completion of a new round of financing. Investors include new and existing institutional investors such as Wintermute, Robot Ventures, Big Brain VC, Cumberland, GSR, Greenfield Capital, Hash3, Bodhi Ventures, and Kairos Research. Nova stated that the current number of existing on-chain capital markets is far below what it should be, and the financing will be used to migrate more perpetual contracts and prediction markets onto the blockchain, reshaping the generation and trading structure of these markets.
Acquisition
Robinhood completes its $180 million acquisition of WonderFi, entering the Canadian crypto market.
Robinhood Markets has completed its $180 million acquisition of Canadian digital asset services company WonderFi. WonderFi operates two regulated Canadian crypto platforms, Bitbuy and Coinsquare, and its users will be invited to migrate to the Robinhood app. Robinhood stated that this acquisition brings its total number of clients outside the US to over 1 million, with 300,000 coming from WonderFi.
The acquisition, first announced in May 2025 and originally scheduled for completion in the second half of 2025, has been delayed due to deployment technology and regulatory approvals. Robinhood established its institutional business last year through the acquisition of Bitstamp. HOOD shares fell 3.8% to $90.73 on Monday, and are down 21.3% year-to-date.
Keyrock is acquiring bankrupt crypto lending company BlockFills for $3.25 million.
Belgian digital asset services company Keyrock is acquiring bankrupt crypto trading and lending firm BlockFills for $3.25 million, pending court approval. Keyrock will assume "virtually" all of BlockFills' assets, some liabilities, some equity, client list, and proprietary technology and intellectual property.
BlockFills filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in March, reporting liabilities of $100 million to $500 million and assets of only $50 million to $100 million. This acquisition will give Keyrock access to BlockFills' institutional client network, including hedge funds, asset management firms, market makers, and mining companies. Keyrock completed a Series C funding round last year led by Standard Chartered's SC Ventures, valuing the company at $1.1 billion, and acquired Luxembourg-based fund management firm Turing Capital last fall.
Noble Mobile, the telecommunications company founded by former US presidential candidate Andrew Yang, announced its acquisition of Helium Mobile, the encrypted wireless operator under the decentralized project Helium, integrating its mobile communications business with Helium's blockchain-based wireless network. Noble stated that existing user plans, prices, and the T-Mobile 5G network they use will remain unchanged, and users can still earn cashback and enjoy a 5.5% annual interest rate by reducing phone usage. Following the transaction, Noble's overall user base has significantly expanded, gaining more resources and bargaining power. The company plans to offer users additional connectivity options based on the Helium Network in the future to improve coverage.
Lukka, an institutional-grade digital asset data and software provider, announced the acquisition of PEER DATA, a data probabilities and compliance platform. Lukka primarily provides auditable digital asset pricing, classification, and market intelligence to funds, custodians, banks, and exchanges; PEER DATA, through its Data Book of Record (DBOR) platform and patented Daisy Chain technology, enables contract digitization, data usage measurement, and end-to-end traceability. The merged entity will provide financial institutions with a "control layer" covering digital assets and a broader range of data assets, providing unified support for pricing, classification, proof of origin, licensing, and governance, and continuously expanding to on-chain assets and AI data consumption scenarios. The new company will continue to operate under the Lukka brand, headquartered in New York, and existing customer service from both companies will remain unchanged.
Cosmos Labs acquires Cosmos browser Mintscan
Cosmos Labs has acquired Mintscan, the blockchain explorer within the Cosmos ecosystem, and established a new subsidiary, Cosmos Labs Korea, in Seoul. This subsidiary will be responsible for the unified development of key infrastructure such as Mintscan, Skip:Go, IBC Eureka, and Cosmos Hub. Some Mintscan employees will join Cosmos Labs, while other operations of the original parent company, Stamper, will remain unaffected.
Institutional Funds
Variant, a venture capital firm focused on crypto, has completed fundraising for its new $222 million fund, Variant 4. The fund will invest in the earliest stages of projects, focusing on "autonomy" and the integration of AI and crypto applications. Partner Jesse Walden stated that the label of "crypto investor" will disappear in the future, as crypto will become a universal "underlying pipeline," much like internet infrastructure. The core of this will be providing users and businesses with greater autonomy and security through decentralized and contract-secure architectures, supporting the development of applications including DeFi platforms Uniswap and Morpho.
