In 2021, investors put a record $30 billion into cryptocurrency.

In 2021, investors put $30 billion into the cryptocurrency business, more than in all the previous years combined. According to Bloomberg News, the huge figure is roughly four times more than the $8 billion invested in digital money startups in 2018.

Many firms successfully attracted investors seeking for the next big thing as cryptocurrency became popular in 2021. Crypto exchanges, firms dealing with digital collectibles, and cryptocurrency-enabled gaming are just a few of the industries that have received multimillion- and even billion-dollar investments.

In a July fundraising round, the crypto derivatives exchange FTX raised $1 billion, making the two-year-old startup a key rival to other prominent cryptocurrency exchanges such as Coinbase and Binance.

This year, investors also found their way into previously esoteric areas such as metaverse platforms and crypto-enabled “play-to-earn” games, in which players may earn bitcoin for playing. Sky Mavis, the creator of the play-to-earn game Axie Infinity, raised $150 million in October on a $3 billion valuation.

The growing interest in the metaverse, which is a broad term for a section of the internet comprised of a few platforms offering digital entertainment and commercial prospects, has also resulted in multimillion-dollar investments in the field. Sandbox, a metaverse platform, raised $93 million in an early November investment headed by SoftBank.

In the NFT area, artists, Fortune 500 businesses, and celebrities such as Quentin Tarantino have used the new technology to sell digital works of art or other valuables for tens of millions of dollars, which has sparked investor interest in the third-party exchanges that facilitate such purchases.

OpenSea, the largest NFT exchange, raised $100 million in a July funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz that valued it at $1.5 billion. The Information stated in November that the exchange was receiving bids worth $10 billion or more.

Patrick

Coincu News