July 2026 Crypto Funding Brief
Welcome to our Monthly Crypto Funding Brief. Each month, we bring you the latest activities in the fundraising landscape. This newsletter aims to keep you informed about key developments, significant fundraises, active investors, and upcoming token unlocks, helping you stay ahead in the dynamic world of investments.
In this edition:
- Monthly Fundraising Highlights
- Largest Venture Funding Rounds
- Most Active Investors
- Distribution of Fundraises by Sector
- Digital Asset Treasury Funding Rounds
- Distribution of Fundraises by Stage
- M&A Activity
- Notable Fundraise Filings
- Token Unlocks for July 2026 / August 2026
Monthly Fundraising Highlights
In July 2026, 72 crypto companies raised a combined $2.13B across 76 rounds. That is a 13% decline in total capital raised from June, when 75 companies raised $2.44 billion across 77 rounds. This marks a second consecutive monthly fall in capital even as deal count was relatively flat. Of this total, 3 companies raised approximately $351.2M through PIPE, debt, or post-IPO equity.
Additionally, July came in below trend on two longer-term metrics. The six-month average stands at $2.53 billion capital raised and 101 deals per month, so the month was light on capital and noticeably quieter on volume.
Largest Venture Funding Rounds
The largest venture round this month was Crypto.com’s $400M Strategic raise led by Citadel Securities, the largest single raise of the month by a wide margin and more than double the second largest deal.
Augustus, a payments company, followed with a $180 million Series B on July 21 led by Tiger Global.
Alpaca followed with a $135M Unspecified raise led by Peak XV Partners to expand its infrastructure stack for global investing; alongside a separate $300M debt facility the same day led by Payward, bringing Alpaca's combined July raise to $435M.
This follows Kraken, a Payward subsidiary, choosing Alpaca earlier this year as the venue sourcing and custodying the equities behind its xStocks tokenized equities, which have since surpassed $25 billion in trading volume.
Together the top five accounted for $970 million, or 46% of all capital raised in the month, a concentration that explains how deal count could hold steady while total capital fell.
Most Active Investors
The top five investors made a total of 18 investments this month. Their investments spanned multiple sectors, including Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain Services, Business Service Providers, DeFi, Decentralized Social, Infrastructure Providers, Payments, and Prime Services.
Coinbase was the month's most active investor by a clear margin, participating in six rounds, though it did not lead any of them. Variant led the most rounds.
Distribution of Fundraises by Sector
Exchanges took the most capital, with $567.75 million across six rounds, a total driven almost entirely by Crypto.com. Trading Services placed second at $435 million from just two rounds, and Payments, the most active sector by number of deals in the past two months, finished third on capital for a third straight month, at $274.5 million across nine rounds.
By volume the picture inverts. Artificial Intelligence and DeFi were the busiest sectors at 11 rounds each, yet raised only $99.44 million and $75.15 million respectively, average deal sizes of $9.04 million and $6.83 million against $94.62 million for Exchanges. Early stage activity remains concentrated in those two categories, while larger checks are being directed elsewhere. Capital spread across 25 sectors in total, shown in full below.
Digital Asset Treasury Funding Rounds
In July, Digital Asset Treasury activity all but disappeared. A single round was recorded, Bitcoin Treasury Capital raising $1.23 million on July 2.
That is a fall of more than 99% month over month, and the clearest signal yet that the DATCO financing wave that defined the first half of 2026 has stalled. The vehicle that dominated headline capital in June contributed less than a tenth of a percent of July's total.
Beyond the numbers, July made clear the treasury model itself is under strain. Satsuma Technology, one of UK's largest listed Bitcoin treasury’s saw shareholders vote more than 90% on July 21 to liquidate its remaining ~668 BTC and delist from the London Stock Exchange; capital return recovers less than 20% of the £163.6M ($217.65M) originally raised. Pantera Capital had publicly pushed for the liquidation since April 2026, after Satsuma's shares fell over 99% from their June 2025 peak and traded below the net value of its own Bitcoin holdings.
Satsuma’s Bitcoin sale came after Strategy, the largest Bitcoin holder, has started selling their own position. Michael Saylor's company sold 3,588 BTC for roughly $216M in its largest ever sale (announced July 6), followed by further sales later in the month, to fund distributions on its preferred stock (STRC) rather than accumulate. It's the company's first sustained selling since 2022, marking a shift for the sector's benchmark name.
Both events reflect the same pressure: Bitcoin's decline through Q1–Q2 2026 pushed treasury company share prices well below net asset value, forcing weaker players to unwind and even the strongest to tap reserves.
Distribution of Fundraises by Stage
In July, Strategic rounds led on capital for a second straight month, with $528.14 million across 14 deals. Two Debt financings raised $350 million between them, and nine Series A rounds accounted for $290 million.
M&A Activity
In July, nineteen acquisitions were announced, up from 13 in June. Eighteen of the month's nineteen deals were announced without disclosed terms, the lone exception was Mirae Asset Global Investment's $96.2 million acquisition of Korean exchange Korbit on July 23.
FalconX acquired bloXroute Labs on 15 July, adding blockchain networking infrastructure to its prime brokerage stack. Circle purchased IBM's blockchain patent portfolio in a 27 July asset purchase, and Payward agreed to acquire Magic Labs' wallet infrastructure business the same day to expand its business-to-business offering.
The Tie completed two acquisitions during the month, Staking Rewards announced July 20 and Liquidity Land on July 21. These deals follow The Tie’s acquisition of Stakin earlier this year.
Notable Fundraise Filings
Funds that reported the most recent fundraises through Form D or D/A filings.
Token Unlocks: July 2026 and August 2026
This chart highlights major token unlocks exclusively for investors in July 2026 and August 2026. Notably, LayerZero unlocked $10.57 million on July 20, 2026 and will unlock an additional $9.59 million on August 20, 2026. Meanwhile, Ethena unlocked a combined total of $11.76 million on July 2 and August 2, 2026. These figures specifically exclude other token allocation categories such as team member distributions, airdrops, or other non-investor allocations.
