John Dantoni

CMS Holdings is a principal investment firm focused on the digital asset ecosystem. The firm was founded in early 2019 by Daniel Matuszewski, Bobby Cho, and Julien Seguin.  . Before founding CMS, Matuszewski and Cho had been in the over-the-counter trading space since the early days of the sector, working for the desks of firms […]

In September 2020, the Crypto exchange Binance launched an Ethereum-compatible blockchain, with its exchange token BNB as the native token. Like Ethereum, Binance Smart Chain (BSC) provides a smart contract platform for decentralized finance applications (DeFi). The rise and popularity of DeFi applications and demand for the Ethereum network have subsequently made it more costly […]

LedgerPrime is a quantitative and systematic investment firm focused on digital assets. The firm launched in 2017 as the principal trading arm of Ledger Holdings Inc., and in 2019 raised separate capital for trading and investment as a hedge fund. Aside from its active quantitative strategies, the firm has also been actively investing since April […]

As the oldest U.S. bitcoin investment firm, Pantera Capital has established itself as a cryptocurrency and blockchain investment leader. Founded in 2003 by Dan Morehead, Pantera Capital was initially a traditional hedge fund focused on investing in global macro trends. In 2013, the firm shifted its focus to digital assets and blockchain technology. With over […]

DeFiance capital is a Singapore-based digital asset fund focused specifically on the decentralized finance (DeFi) vertical. Founded by Arthur Cheong, the firm operates as a sub-fund of Three Arrows Capital. Before the firm was founded in September 2020, Cheong was an early investor in DeFi protocols, operating similar investment strategies to DeFiance since late 2018.  […]

Avalanche is an open-source platform for decentralized finance (DeFi) applications and enterprise solutions. Developers can create customizable blockchains within Avalanche that fit their application’s needs, whether that be an open and public blockchain or a private blockchain solution. Developed by Ava Labs, the team raised a total of $60 million across three separate sales. In […]

Andersson Horowitz is one of the most renowned venture capital firms to come out of Silicon Valley. Founded in 2009 by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, the firm made early bets on several high profile software startups like Skype, Facebook, Airbnb, Twitter, and Lyft. The firm was an early investor in digital assets, investing in […]

In April 2017, the Interchain Foundation raised $17 million worth of Bitcoin and Ethereum to build an interconnected blockchain network. Networks built on Cosmos will have the ability to maintain governance-related autonomy and be interoperable where they can transfer tokens and data with each other. Tendermint, also known as All In Bits Inc., has been […]

Kenetic Capital is a blockchain-focused investment firm and proprietary trading shop based in Hong Kong. The firm was founded by Jehan Chu in 2016. Kenetic Trading, the high-frequency trading firm, is operated as a separate entity and is independently managed. The trading firm deploys both high and medium frequency principal trading strategies through their proprietary […]

Recently, we mapped out the projects and companies that are currently developing on Polkadot’s ecosystem. While some of these initiatives are self-funded, most have received funding through the Web3 Foundation’s grant program, venture capital, and or directly from Polkadot’s treasury.  Our research identified a total of 21 projects that have received outside capital from investors […]

Polkadot is one of the more anticipated Proof-of-Stake networks and smart contract challengers to Ethereum. The network was founded by Gavin Wood, a co-founder of Ethereum, Robert Habermeier, a former Thiel Fellow, and Peter Czaban, the technology director of the Web3 Foundation. The core team behind the development of Polkadot includes the research & development […]

As 2020 officially comes to a close, we will focus on a segment within the digital assets industry that we expect to be ripe for consolidation. As we concluded in our Digital Asset Outlook 2021 report, an increase in regulatory and compliance mandates for the industry will continue to make data & analytics companies more […]

Facebook caught the crypto/blockchain sector’s attention, regulators, and lawmakers alike when it first announced its blockchain initiatives, originally dubbed Libra. Libra, now rebranded to Diem, originally had aspirations of issuing a digital stablecoin backed by a basket of different global currencies. Since then, the project has toned down its design to a single dollar-backed digital […]

SBI Holdings is a Japanese-Internet financial services conglomerate with three core businesses that extend to financial services, asset management, and biotechnology. Founded in 1999, the company was initially part of the Softbank group and became independent in 2006. The firm has operated off of the thesis that the Internet, fintech, AI, blockchain, and quantum computing […]

ParaFi Capital is an investment firm focused on blockchain technology and decentralized finance markets. Based in San Francisco, California, the fund was founded by Ben Forman, a previous executive at the private equity firms KKR and TPG. As of August 31, ParaFi had more than $100 million in assets under management. The firm was one […]

As 2020 is quickly coming to a close, we will highlight the top 15 venture funding deals that occurred this year in the crypto/blockchain vertical.  Relative to 2019, the top deals on average were much larger in size, from $55 million in 2019 to $80 million in 2020, roughly a 45% year-over-year increase. The median […]

The Block Research analyzed a total of 873 blockchain-related investment deals that have occurred this year to identify which crypto funds have been the most active in 2020.  Using Pitchbook, Crunchbase, and our own sourcing/filtering, we mapped out the top 10 most active funds to determine if there is a specific sector that funds are […]

CoinFund is a blockchain-focused investment fund based in Brooklyn, New York. Founded in 2015 by Jake Brukhman, The firm seeks investments in crypto networks that adhere to their core value propositions such as decentralization, censorship resistance, and borderlessness and are competitive to traditional products and services. Brukhman has operated the fund off of the belief […]

Decentralized Finance (DeFi) is largely an incentive-based system. As new projects pop up and dole up their tokens to liquidity providers, users flock between different applications to chase the highest yield opportunities.  In most cases, these incentives that provided users with hundreds to thousands of APY were not sustainable. As incentives and yield opportunities began […]

Cryptocurrency exchanges have been among the most profitable business types within the blockchain/crypto vertical, employing thousands of employees. Over the past decade, the rising popularity of digital assets sparked a simple business model: the provision of a platform where users can easily buy, sell, and or trade them. The Block Research analyzed 123 cryptocurrency exchanges […]