Crypto VC Funding Hits $479M: Top Deals This Week

Every Friday evening I do the same ritual: pour a strong coffee, open the fundraising trackers, and see just how much money the crypto world managed to move in the past seven days. This week? I nearly spilled the coffee. Almost half a billion dollars across eighteen deals, and one single acquisition eating up literally half of that total. Yeah, the bears can keep hibernating – the smart money is clearly wide awake.

We’re talking real institutional checks, not just meme-coin presales or sketchy IDOs. We’re talking Paradigm, Coinbase Ventures, BNY Mellon, the Winklevoss twins, and a Turkish powerhouse that just wrote a nine-figure check like it was buying lunch. Let’s dive in.

The Week in Numbers: $478.9 Million Across 18 Projects

Before we get to the juicy details, here’s the quick snapshot that made my eyebrows hit the ceiling:

• Total capital deployed: $478.9 million
• Biggest single transaction: $240 million (one acquisition)
• Number of rounds: 18
• Average deal size (excluding the monster acquisition): ~$13 million
• Top sectors: Infrastructure, exchanges, perpetuals, real-world asset tokenization

That’s not retail FOMO money. That’s the kind of capital that builds things that actually last through the next cycle.

The Elephant in the Room: Paribu Buys CoinMENA for $240 Million

Let’s just get this one out of the way because it completely overshadows everything else that happened this week.

Turkish exchange Paribu – already one of the biggest players in Türkiye – just acquired Bahrain-based CoinMENA in a deal valued at up to $240 million. That’s not a funding round. That’s a full-on takeover, and it instantly creates one of the most powerful crypto on-ramps for the entire MENA region plus Türkiye.

Why does this matter? Because geography still matters in crypto. Regulatory clarity in the Gulf, a young tech-savvy population, and a Turkish market that never really went away even during the bear – combine those and you have a monster footprint overnight. In my view, this is the kind of consolidation we’ll see a lot more of in 2026.

“This acquisition strengthens our global presence, accelerates innovation, and allows us to deliver even more value and opportunities to our users across MENA…”

– CoinMENA official announcement

N3XT Quietly Raises $72 Million from Heavy Hitters

While everyone was talking about the Paribu deal, a much more interesting infrastructure play slipped under the radar. N3XT – a financial institution building programmable real-time settlement – pulled in $72 million from Paradigm, Hack VC, and Winklevoss Capital.

Real-time settlement might sound boring until you remember that the traditional finance system still runs on T+2 (or worse). If N3XT actually delivers what it’s promising, we’re looking at the kind of plumbing that could bring trillions of institutional dollars on-chain. That’s the bet Paradigm just doubled down on.

Personal take? This is the most under-discussed raise of the week. Infrastructure rounds like this one are the ones that actually move the needle three years from now.

Canton Network Bags Another $50 Million from Traditional Finance Giants

Remember when people said institutions were never coming? Canton Network – the public Layer-1 built by Digital Asset – just raised $50 million from BNY Mellon, iCapital, and Nasdaq. Total capital raised now sits at $447.2 million. Let that sink in.

This isn’t some DeFi protocol promising 1000% APY. This is the exact kind of boring-but-essential infrastructure that banks actually want to use. Tokenization of real-world assets isn’t coming – it’s already here, and Canton just got another massive vote of confidence.

The Bitcoin DeFi Renaissance Continues: Portal and Ostium Labs

Two Bitcoin-focused projects made serious noise this week, proving that Bitcoin isn’t just digital gold anymore – it’s becoming a legitimate DeFi ecosystem.

Portal, the Bitcoin-based DEX, raised $25 million from JTSA Global, bringing their total to $117.5 million. Meanwhile, Ostium Labs – the team behind the Ostium perpetuals exchange – closed a $20 million Series A at a $250 million fully diluted valuation, backed by General Catalyst, Jump Trading, and Coinbase Ventures.

I’ve been saying this for months: the next wave of DeFi growth won’t be on Ethereum. It’ll be on Bitcoin L2s and sidechains. The numbers this week back that thesis hard.

Full Breakdown: Every Deal from the Past Seven Days

Here’s the complete list so you can see exactly where the money is flowing:

And yes, there were another eight smaller raises under $5 million each – the usual mix of AI agents, new L2s, and niche DeFi plays. The full list is out there if you want to dig deeper, but honestly? The big money told us everything we needed to know this week.

What This Actually Means for the Market

Look, anyone can cherry-pick deals and scream “bull market confirmed!” But let’s be real for a second.

The fact that traditional finance giants like BNY Mellon and Nasdaq are writing eight-figure checks to public blockchain infrastructure projects? That’s new. The fact that Bitcoin-native DeFi is pulling in Coinbase Ventures and Jump Trading money? That’s new. And the fact that regional powerhouses are consolidating through nine-figure acquisitions? Definitely new.

We’re not in 2021 anymore, where money rained on anything with “Web3” in the pitch deck. This is targeted, institutional-grade capital going into projects that solve real problems. In my experience, that’s exactly how every major bull market actually starts – quietly, in the infrastructure layer, long before the price charts go parabolic.

So yeah, I finished that coffee. And I’m pouring another one for next Friday, because if this week was any indication, we’re just getting started.

Want to stay ahead of the next $400 million week? The smart money moves fast – make sure you do too.