Highlights of this episode
According to incomplete statistics from PANews, there were 14 investment and financing events in the global blockchain sector last week (May 4-10), with a total funding scale exceeding US$1.049 billion. An overview is as follows:
- Four investment and financing events were announced in the DeFi sector, including the completion of a $5 million Series A financing round by on-chain reinsurance company OnRe, led by Forward Industries and Rockaway.
- In the infrastructure & tools sector, four investment and financing events were announced, including OpenTrade completing a $17 million strategic financing round led by Mercury Fund and Notion Capital;
- One investment and financing event was announced in the centralized finance sector: Stockcoin.ai, an AI-driven stock and cryptocurrency futures trading platform, completed its seed round of financing, led by Amber Group.
- The prediction market sector announced three investment and financing events, including Kalshi completing a new round of financing of $1 billion, led by Coatue Management;
- Two other investment and financing events were announced in the Web3 application sector, including a strategic investment by Standard Chartered's investment and fintech arm, SC Ventures, in crypto market maker GSR.
DeFi
Solana-based treasury firm Forward Industries announced that it co-led a $5 million Series A funding round with digital asset investment firm RockawayX for regulated on-chain reinsurance company OnRe. Forward plans to deploy up to $25 million additional in OnRe's yield-generating token ONyc on Solana. OnRe is a licensed collateralized reinsurance company and on-chain asset management firm. ONyc provides exposure to reinsurance risk portfolios and is integrated into mainstream DeFi venues on Solana, serving as collateral for lending and revolving strategies.
Bitcoin-backed digital lending protocol Saturn Credit raises $2 million in seed funding.
Saturn Credit, a Bitcoin-backed digital lending protocol, has raised $2 million in seed funding, led by The Spartan Group, with participation from Anchorage Digital and Susquehanna Crypto. Saturn Credit is a stablecoin protocol built on Strategy's STRC platform and is scheduled to launch in March 2026. Saturn Credit employs a dual-token system: USDat is a non-interest-bearing stablecoin backed by tokenized US Treasury bonds through M tokens, licensed and pegged 1:1 to USDC; sUSDat is an ERC-4626 interest-bearing treasury that accumulates STRC dividends and has a 3-7 day exit queue.
Blockchain trading platform Ekiden announced the completion of a $2 million seed funding round, valuing the company at $20 million. The round was led by Unicorn Factory Ventures and P2 Ventures, with participation from angel investors who have previously invested in projects such as GSR, Pyth, Aptos, LayerZero, and Cube Exchange. Ekiden aims to bring institutional-grade trading on-chain, providing efficient and secure trading solutions through blockchain technology.
Coinbase announced a seven-figure dollar strategic investment in tokenization infrastructure company Centrifuge, designating it as a primary Reality Asset (RWA) tokenization partner for its Base ecosystem. Under the agreement, Centrifuge will become the core infrastructure provider for on-chaining traditional financial assets such as ETFs, credit funds, and structured products on the Base chain. Centrifuge will be responsible for asset tokenization, structure design, yield APIs, and compliance tools, as well as connecting to DeFi protocols to expand liquidity. Both parties stated that the long-term goal is to drive the on-chaining of more financial assets, including stocks and potential Coinbase equity (COIN), and to build a scalable on-chain financial market system by combining exchange distribution capabilities with RWA infrastructure.
Infrastructure & Tools
OpenTrade raises $17 million to expand stablecoin yield infrastructure
London-based crypto startup OpenTrade has raised $17 million in strategic funding, led by Mercury Fund and Notion Capital, with participation from a16z crypto, AlbionVC, CMCC Global, and others, bringing its total funding to over $30 million. OpenTrade offers on-chain and real-world asset-backed lending and stablecoin yield products for institutions, and plans to use the funds to expand its infrastructure in permissioned and permissionless scenarios. Its products include a permissionless protocol layer and the yield vault portfolio framework Curration+, which enables fintech companies, digital banks, vaults, and asset issuers to design yield strategies across RWA and on-chain assets. OpenTrade claims its total value locked (TVL) has surpassed $200 million, with transaction volume exceeding $250 million by 2025, and is projected to exceed $1 billion by the end of 2026.
RWA blockchain platform Balcony raises $12.7 million in seed funding.
Balcony, an RWA infrastructure based on the Avalanche blockchain, announced the completion of a $12.7 million seed funding round led by Blockchange Ventures, bringing its total funding to $14 million. The new funds will be used to deploy its on-chain real estate trading and asset settlement service platform in the US market, integrating fragmented property records into a tamper-proof digital register, while using artificial intelligence detection technology to combat title fraud.
Antier Solutions, an enterprise blockchain infrastructure provider, has raised $3 million in funding, led by GVFL.
Enterprise blockchain infrastructure provider Antier Solutions announced the completion of a $3 million funding round led by GVFL. The new funds will be used to support the construction of secure transactions, verifiable workflows, and institutional-grade blockchain infrastructure, expand deployments in the government and financial institutions (BFSI) sector, and expand business in the U.S., Middle East, and Asia Pacific markets.
Coinbase announced a partnership with Kemet, an institutional-grade trading system provider, to expand institutional clients' access to its multi-market trading system. Under the partnership, Kemet will integrate multiple Coinbase trading platforms, including Coinbase Exchange, Coinbase Derivatives Exchange, Coinbase International Exchange, and Deribit, enabling institutional users to perform unified trade execution and strategy management across spot, futures, and options trading within a single platform.
Simultaneously, Coinbase Ventures will make a strategic investment in Kemet to support the long-term collaboration between the two companies in the institutional trading infrastructure sector. Coinbase stated that the goal of this collaboration is to further strengthen its position as an "institutional-grade trading core platform," providing deeper liquidity integration and execution capabilities across the spot, futures, and options markets, enabling institutional clients to directly access Coinbase's full product ecosystem and optimize trading efficiency through the Kemet platform.
Prediction Market
According to The New York Times, prediction market platform Kalshi has completed a new $1 billion funding round led by Coatue Management, bringing its valuation to $22 billion. This is the company's third funding round in seven months, with each round roughly doubling its valuation. A funding round last December already made co-founders Tarek Mansour and Luana Lopes Lara paper billionaires. Kalshi claims to have approximately 2 million monthly active users, an annualized trading volume of $178 billion (more than three times the past six months), and annualized revenue exceeding $1.5 billion. The company is seeking to expand through partnerships with large financial institutions, despite facing regulatory lawsuits and insider trading concerns in multiple states regarding its sports and other contracts.
AI prediction market platform Elastics has raised $2 million in Pre-Seed funding, led by First VC.
AI prediction market platform Elastics announced the completion of a $2 million Pre-Seed funding round, led by First VC, with participation from angel investors ElevenLabs, XBTO, RedStone, and a16z Scout Fund. Elastics is building an AI-native operating system for prediction markets, allowing users to trade using natural language, with AI agents executing the trades automatically.
Sportix, a sports AI-powered intelligent infrastructure platform, has raised $3.2 million in funding, with participation from Animoca Brands and others.
Sportix, a sports AI-powered intelligent infrastructure platform, announced the completion of a $3.2 million funding round. This round was led by Coinvestor Ventures, Animoca Brands, Becker Ventures, X21 Digital, and Alpha Capital. Sportix is an intelligent platform built around sports events and athletes, aiming to integrate real-time data, AI predictive models, and market infrastructure into a unified ecosystem, providing users with structured and actionable sports intelligence. The funds raised will be used directly to deepen the development of its AI aggregation engine, improve the accuracy of its MIE and PIS, and expand the scale of its B2B API to empower a broader sports data ecosystem.
Centralized Finance
AI-native trading platform Stockcoin.ai completes seed round funding, led by Amber Group.
Stockcoin.ai, an AI-powered stock and cryptocurrency futures trading platform, has completed its seed round of financing, led by Amber Group, with participation from crypto and angel investors from the traditional financial sector. The platform focuses on bridging on-chain data with the stock market. According to disclosures, Stockcoin.ai will subsequently launch Hong Kong IPO subscription and US pre-IPO functions.
other
Standard Chartered's SC Ventures makes a strategic investment in crypto market maker GSR
SC Ventures, the investment and fintech arm of Standard Chartered Bank, has made a strategic investment in crypto market maker GSR. This investment makes SC Ventures GSR's first external strategic shareholder since its founding in 2013. The investment amount was not disclosed. The deal reportedly builds on a partnership established last month when GSR invested in Libera, a tokenization platform backed by SC Ventures, as part of its expansion into the crypto capital markets.
Bitcoin reserve company Capital B announced the completion of a €1.1 million funding round, funded by Blockstream CEO Adam Back's subscription of BSA 2026-02 equity warrants. Simultaneously, the company lowered the conversion price of its OCA B-04 convertible bonds from €5.174 to €2.59 per share and added a two-year equity warrant (BSA OC) for each converted bond. This move aims to optimize its capital structure and accelerate its Bitcoin reserve strategy.
Investment institutions
Haun Ventures, founded by crypto investor Katie Haun, has raised $1 billion for a new fund.
Haun Ventures, the venture capital arm of crypto investor Katie Haun, has completed fundraising for a new $1 billion fund, which will be evenly distributed between early- and late-stage investments. The new fund will reportedly focus on crypto, AI, and alternative asset startups. Katie Haun was formerly a partner at Andreessen Horowitz and founded Haun Ventures in 2022.
Swiss investment firm Multi Investment announced the completion of a CHF 480 million (approximately US$616 million) funding round, bringing its total assets under management to over CHF 3 billion. The funding aims to further diversify its investment portfolio, focusing on high-growth sectors such as fintech, deep tech, blockchain, and Web3. Multi Investment plans to increase its investment in these strategic areas by the third quarter of 2026, with several deals currently under evaluation. It also aims to rapidly expand its influence in these emerging ecosystems.
Global Millennial's fund has raised $100 million to focus on investing in the DeFi market.
Global Millennial Capital (GMCL) announced that its inaugural IPO Opportunities Fund has completed its final fundraising of $100 million. Investors include family offices from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Qatar, as well as international wealth management institutions. The fund will provide professional and institutional investors with investment opportunities in technology companies nearing liquidity events through a private placement. The fund primarily targets mid-sized technology companies with market capitalizations between $5 billion and $20 billion, focusing on areas such as artificial intelligence and DeFi technologies, and emphasizing companies with scalable business models, stable revenue structures, and mature governance systems. GMCL stated that these mid-sized technology companies are in the early stages of value realization but are often overlooked by large funds and early-stage investors. The fund's strategy will focus on participating in key stages leading up to a company's IPO or strategic exit, while strengthening risk management and investment discipline.
