Crunchbase: Q1 venture capital funding in the encryption field was nearly $1.9 billion, the first quarterly increase since 2021

According to data released by Crunchbase today, venture capital funding for cryptocurrency and blockchain projects has just experienced its first quarterly growth since 2021. In the first quarter of 2024, Web3 startups raised nearly $1.9 billion across 346 deals, a 58% increase from the last quarter of 2023. But the overall downward trend in cryptocurrency venture capital interest continues, with a 17% drop from last year’s first-quarter figures and roughly half the number of deals.

The report's author, Chris Metinko, said investors who have recently invested in Web3 are more inclined to "invest for the long term," in contrast to some of the more popular "tourist investors" chasing the hype of the past few years. He added, “They may be in the artificial intelligence space.” Metinko explained: “What you are seeing is investment in the underlying infrastructure of the decentralized Internet, not what we will see in the heyday of crypto in 2021 to 2022. Wallets and Lenders” (Fortune).