Abstract

• Based on Cryptorank data from March 3, 2025, the Web3 industry completed 134 funding rounds in February 2025, totaling $1.02 billion.
• Compared to January 2025, the number of funding rounds and the amount decreased by 8.8% and 6.4%, respectively; compared to the same period last year, the funding amount decreased by 17%, and the number of funding rounds dropped by 5.6%. Overall, the performance was similar to January 2025.
• February’s large funding trends focused on CeFi and the acceleration of institutionalization, while also seeing investments in emerging sub-sectors such as Ordinals and cybersecurity.
• Funding in February 2025 was primarily concentrated in the CeFi, blockchain services, and DeFi sectors. CeFi topped the list with $301 million in funding, mainly due to the development of institutional scenarios like blockchain lending and asset management.
• Funding amounts still leaned towards small to mid-sized projects, with 73% raising less than $10 million. Large-scale funding rounds remain rare, with only 4.7% of projects raising over $50 million.
• Pre-Seed and Seed rounds continue to dominate, accounting for over half of all funding, although individual funding amounts are relatively low; later-stage funding is mainly concentrated in leading projects.
• Amber Group ranked first with six investment projects, making it the most active investment institution in February 2025.

Funding Overview

According to data from Cryptorank on March 3, 2025, the Web3 industry completed 134 funding rounds in February 2025, totaling $1.02 billion. [1]

Compared to January 2025, the number of funding rounds and the amount decreased by 8.8% and 6.4%, respectively; compared to the same period last year, the funding amount decreased by 17%, and the number of funding rounds dropped by 5.6%. Overall, the performance was similar to January 2025.

Since the funding peak in December 2024 (163 rounds, approximately $3.07 billion), market funding amounts have temporarily dropped, but there has been no significant rebound in early 2025. Compared to the large acquisitions or transactions each month in Q4 2024, January and February 2025 lacked many large-scale funding cases, indicating that the current Web3 market funding environment remains cautious. The uncertainty in the macroeconomic environment and the ongoing fluctuations in regulatory policies may continue to impact investor confidence and the pace of institutional deployments.

Based on the data analysis of the top 10 funding projects in February 2025, we can observe the following characteristics of large funding projects this month: [2]

• CeFi dominates large funding rounds: In the top 10 projects, the CeFi (centralized finance) sector occupies three spots (Figure, Bitwise, HashKey Group), with a total funding of $300 million, accounting for 29.4% of the total funding in February. Among them, blockchain lending company Figure leads with $200 million (Undisclosed round), highlighting the integration trend between traditional finance and crypto lending. Bitwise and HashKey Group raised $70 million and $30 million, respectively, reflecting investor optimism about applications combining traditional finance with blockchain.
• Stablecoin sector shines: The synthetic dollar protocol Ethena on Ethereum raised $100 million in private token seed round funding, with its stablecoin Ethena USDe raising $20 million. Additionally, stablecoin company Plasma raised $20.5 million, showing investors’ focus on the demand for stable assets.
• Security and infrastructure emerge as new focal points: Frequent security incidents have led to a surge in demand for cybersecurity, with Web3 security company Blockaid raising $50 million. This reflects the industry’s urgent need for defense against on-chain attacks and smart contract auditing. Modular yield layer project Cygnus Finance raised $20 million, showing the market’s long-term optimism about composable infrastructure.
• Significant progress in other niche sectors: Gift card crypto platform Raise secured $63 million in strategic funding. Taproot Wizards, focusing on Bitcoin Ordinals, raised $30 million, demonstrating the continued attractiveness of the NFT sector.
  Overall, the large funding trends in February focused on CeFi and the acceleration of institutionalization, with investments also flowing into emerging sub-sectors like Ordinals and cybersecurity. The diversity of sectors and active investment institutions signal that the crypto industry still holds immense potential in financial services, technological innovation, and ecosystem expansion.

According to Cryptorank data, the funding in the Web3 industry in February 2025 was mainly concentrated in CeFi, blockchain services, and DeFi sectors. At the same time, the continued investment in infrastructure and public chain fields provided solid support for technological iteration, while the sluggish funding in application layers (such as GameFi and Social) suggests that the market needs clearer business model breakthroughs. The specifics are as follows:

• CeFi and financial services lead funding: CeFi topped the list with $301 million in funding, mainly driven by the development of institutional scenarios such as blockchain lending and asset management, indicating the ongoing integration of traditional finance and the crypto market. Blockchain services and DeFi raised $223 million and $222 million, respectively, reflecting capital’s dual bet on underlying tools (such as security audits and development frameworks) and decentralized protocol innovations.
• Steady investment in infrastructure and public chain ecosystems: Blockchain infrastructure and Chain sectors raised $93.05 million and $72.4 million, respectively, with funds primarily flowing into modular architectures, cross-chain protocols, and Layer 2 scaling solutions, laying the foundation for the long-term development of multi-chain ecosystems.
• Differentiation in application layer sectors: NFT and GameFi raised $44 million and $33.3 million in funding, showing a slight rebound from the previous month, but still falling short of the previous peak, indicating that the market is more focused on practical assets rather than purely speculative ones. Meanwhile, social and Meme projects saw limited funding, with only $8.5 million and $3 million, respectively. The successful funding of Meme projects shows that investors are beginning to explore new models with lighter technology and stronger community focus.

According to the data of 85 disclosed funding projects in February 2025, we can observe that February continued the trend from the previous month, with a focus on small and medium-sized funding, supplemented by large-scale financing:

The funding scale was still dominated by small and medium-sized projects, with 73% of projects funding below $10 million. Projects in the $3 million to $10 million range accounted for 36.5%, and those in the $1 million to $3 million range accounted for 29.4%. In contrast, small-scale funding below $1 million accounted for only 7.1%, indicating that capital is more inclined to teams with a certain product and market foundation.

Large-scale funding projects remained relatively scarce, with only 4.7% raising more than $50 million. However, the amount of single financing in this category far exceeded that of small and medium-sized projects, such as Figure in the CeFi sector, which raised a single financing of $200 million. These large-scale financings were mainly concentrated in CeFi, DeFi protocols, and blockchain infrastructure sectors, with leading institutions making large bets on compliance and scaling scenarios.

From the perspective of funding rounds, Pre-Seed and Seed rounds remained the main focus of financing, accounting for more than half of the total. Among them, Pre-Seed rounds accounted for 16.5% of the projects, with 13.0% of the funding amount, while Seed rounds accounted for 38.0% of the projects and 28.9% of the funding amount. Early-stage projects had a relatively low average single financing amount of about $3 million, reflecting capital’s tentative support for projects at the proof-of-concept stage. Investors are spreading their investments to capture innovation opportunities while controlling risks.

Later-stage funding was primarily concentrated in leading projects. Series A rounds accounted for 10.1% of the projects and 18.4% of the funding. Series B rounds accounted for 1.3% of the projects but accounted for 13.2% of the funding amount, with single amounts far exceeding other rounds. This reflects capital’s large bets on mature projects, tending to provide scaled resources to projects with validated business models or ecosystem synergy potential.

Strategic rounds accounted for nearly one-third of the projects, with 26.3% of the total funding amount, highlighting the acceleration of industry consolidation. Exchanges, development platforms, and other entities use capital to bind key ecosystem partners.

According to Cryptorank data from March 3, 2025, Amber Group led the list with six investment projects, becoming the most active investment institution in February 2025, focusing on blockchain infrastructure and the GameFi sector. It was followed by institutions such as Balaji Srinivasan and Animoca Brands, with other institutions having 2 to 4 investment projects. From the sector distribution, several institutions have investments in blockchain infrastructure (deep blue), blockchain services (brown), and DeFi (black). Some institutions have also ventured into emerging sectors such as GameFi, NFTs, and Meme, indicating that investors continue to focus on the potential of these areas.

Key Funding Projects in February

Raise

Introduction: Raise is a platform for buying, selling, and exchanging gift cards. Users can sell unused gift cards or purchase and redeem them online. The funds are stored on the Raise platform after purchasing a gift card from a partnered retailer. Raise then uses stablecoins or cryptocurrencies pegged to the US dollar to deposit the funds into the retailer’s custodial account. When the user redeems the gift card, Raise will pay the retailer through ACH or stablecoins from the custodial account. [3]

On February 26, Raise announced the completion of a $63 million strategic funding round, led by Haun Ventures. The funds will be used for platform upgrades and market expansion. This round brings Raise’s total funding to over $220 million. [4]

Investors/Angel Investors: Haun Ventures, Paper Ventures, Selini Capital, GSR, and Raj Gokal, co-founder of the Solana blockchain, among others.

Highlights:

1. Raise has now integrated cryptocurrency payments, allowing users to use digital assets to purchase and redeem gift cards seamlessly. Through a partnership with the Polkadot Community Foundation (PCF), Raise has expanded its business into blockchain payments and plans to integrate into the DOT Wallet. Additionally, the company has partnered with WalletConnect to increase support for digital wallets such as MetaMask, Phantom, and Coinbase Wallet. Customers can use a variety of cryptocurrencies, including ETH, BTC, DOT, SOL, USDC, and USDT, to purchase gift cards.
2. Raise collaborates with various crypto projects to offer unique promotional activities, such as users of the Polkadot Pay app receiving up to 20% cashback on transactions made with DOT.
3. Raise has been deeply involved in the gift card industry for over a decade. According to its website, it has facilitated over $5 billion in transactions, earned users over $250 million in cashback, and reached over 6 million users, demonstrating its mature operational network and market insights. The platform has partnered with nearly 1,000 brands, including well-known retailers like iTunes, Sephora, and Home Depot.

Cygnus Finance

Introduction: Cygnus is a modular real yield layer designed to combine non-EVM systems like TON with the EVM ecosystem for yield maximization. Its core is the Liquidity Verification System (LVS), which provides distributed validation semantics for any system that requires validation. Users can participate in ecosystem liquidity security while automatically enjoying staking rewards, LVS fees, and other system incentives. [5]

On February 18, Cygnus announced the completion of a $20 million Pre-Seed funding round, led by crypto market maker Manifold Trading. [6]

Investors: Manifold, OKX Ventures, Mirana Ventures, Optimism, eGirl Capital, UpHonest Capital, among others.

Highlights:

1. Cygnus integrates multi-chain liquidity through its modular design, offering a unified real yield pool for assets on different chains, solving the liquidity fragmentation issue caused by asynchronous cycles. At the same time, Cygnus attracts new users and developers through real yields (such as trading fees and staking rewards), effectively preventing user loss and ecosystem decline caused by insufficient rewards.
2. Cygnus supports the full use of Solidity to develop ZK applications, allowing developers to seamlessly integrate with existing EVM development tools and smart contracts without learning new programming languages. Based on modular data availability (DA) and zkEVM technology, Cygnus achieves high throughput and low gas costs, successfully addressing the performance bottlenecks of traditional ZK networks.
3. Cygnus has formed strategic partnerships with various crypto projects to deepen its ecosystem. For example, it collaborates with BitFi to enhance Bitcoin liquidity and yield potential; integrates RedStone Oracles to provide accurate price information for LST and LRT; integrates with Wormhole NTT to extend $cgETH.hashkey and $clBTC natively to Ethereum, Optimism, Base, and Arbitrum; partners with Phylax Systems to enhance the security of modular real yield through trusted layers; and works with HashKey Cloud to unlock new opportunities for Ethereum re-staking and yield generation.
4. According to Cygnus’ official website, as of March 4, 2025, Cygnus’ Total Value Locked (TVL) has reached $952 million, with over 7 million users, more than 2 million active wallets, over 740,000 daily active wallets, and more than 1 million community members.

ResearchHub

Introduction: ResearchHub is a platform to enhance the openness and collaboration of scientific research, where anyone can earn cryptocurrency rewards by contributing new knowledge to the global scientific community. Those who publish outstanding content on ResearchHub will be rewarded with the cryptocurrency ResearchCoin (RSC). [7]

On February 20, ResearchHub announced the completion of a new $2 million funding round, with BoostVC participating. The funds will further advance its mission of decentralizing scientific research through openness, transparency, and collaboration. [8]

Investors: BoostVC, among others.

Highlights:

1. ResearchHub reshapes the way scientific funding is distributed through a decentralized economic model, overcoming the limitations of traditional funding sources such as governments, corporations, or large institutions. The traditional model not only restricts research independence but can also lead to research directions being influenced by external factors. On ResearchHub, researchers can raise funds by issuing their own tokens to cover research expenses, reward contributors, and even purchase necessary resources.
2. Researchers can submit papers, comment on research results on the platform, and receive the platform’s native token, RSC, as a reward. Unlike the traditional academic reliance on citation counts and impact factors, ResearchHub’s reputation system is community-driven, and the allocation of RSC tokens directly reflects scholars’ contributions and influence within the community. This mechanism provides fair recognition for all scholars, particularly offering young researchers the opportunity to showcase their work and build their reputation.
3. On the platform, users can share their research and participate in others’ projects, forming a highly collaborative research community. Unlike the months or even years-long peer review processes of traditional academic publishing, ResearchHub allows researchers to publish their findings directly and receive immediate feedback from global peers, accelerating the optimization and dissemination of research.
4. Supported by Coinbase founder Brian Armstrong, ResearchHub has also garnered attention from top global academic journal Nature. With a monthly visit count of 9 million, Nature featured ResearchHub in a report on December 11, 2024, highlighting how it is transforming the academic review model, further validating its innovation and impact.

Ethena

Introduction: Ethena is an Ethereum-based synthetic dollar protocol designed to transform Ethereum into a global internet bond through delta-neutral positions in stETH, creating a crypto-native and yield-bearing stablecoin: USDe. [9]

On February 24, Bloomberg reported that Ethena completed a $100 million funding round through a private ENA token sale. [10]

Investors/Angel Investors: Polychain Capital, Pantera Capital, DragonFly Capital, F-Prime Capital, Franklin Templeton Investments, and others.

Highlights:

1. The “internet bond” is an innovation of Ethena. It has created the first on-chain crypto-native monetary solution by combining staking yields, market financing, and underlying interest rate spreads. This concept is similar to the government bond-based monetary issuance system, providing a new way of issuing and pricing currency in Web3, with vast growth potential and the prospect of becoming a major player in the stablecoin market.
2. Ethena allows users to deposit USD, Ethereum, or liquid staking tokens as collateral to mint USDe. It ensures stability by executing delta-neutral hedging processes between centralized and decentralized exchanges. The collateral is held in secure on-chain custody wallets, and delta-neutral positions are created through corresponding short positions.
3. Ethena diversifies risks by collaborating with multiple exchanges, reducing the potential impact of exchange bankruptcies. Moreover, through over-the-counter (OTC) settlement providers, Ethena retains full control and ownership of assets without depositing collateral with exchanges. This way, any special events occurring at a single exchange can be contained within the unrealized profits and losses during the OTC settlement cycle.
4. Since its inception, the relative yield premium of sUSDe has averaged 5-8% higher than the federal funds rate. This structural advantage has attracted numerous retail and institutional investors, leading to rapid growth within the first few months of launch. As of March 4, 2025, Ethena’s TVL (Total Value Locked) has reached $5.5 billion, making it one of the fastest-growing products in the DeFi space. [11]

Blockaid

Introduction: Blockaid is a Web3 security company founded by two former Israeli military cyber intelligence officers. Its Web3 security tools intercept malicious transactions before they occur, protecting users from scams, phishing, and hacker attacks. [12]

On February 18, Blockaid announced it had completed a $50 million Series B funding round, led by Ribbit Capital. The company plans to use this funding to expand operations and increase investment in research and development. [13]

Investors: Ribbit Capital, GV (Google Ventures), Variant, Cyberstarts, and others.

Highlights:

1. Blockaid offers two security solutions to protect users from malicious dApp attacks. Its dApp scanning engine simulates all potential user actions within a dApp, analyzing whether these actions or the dApp itself involve malicious behavior. The dApp scanning sandbox safely simulates user interactions with dApps, ensuring user assets remain secure.
2. Blockaid is able to detect malicious decentralized applications and fully simulate off-chain signatures (EIP-712). Previously, Blockaid partnered with MetaMask and OpenSea to launch a user security enhancement experiment. This feature alerts users when interacting with “known scams.” Users can leverage Blockaid’s analysis capabilities to detect malicious activities such as signature farming and wallet draining, and also access OpenSea’s fraud blacklist.
3. Blockaid has formed strategic partnerships with Coinbase Wallet, 1inch, and Avalanche Core Wallet, further solidifying its leadership position in Web3 security. Currently, Blockaid has become the preferred security solution provider for industry giants such as Coinbase, Kraken, MetaMask, Uniswap, World App, Stellar, and many traditional institutions and fintech companies.
4. Since its inception, Blockaid has achieved impressive results: securing assets worth over $101 billion, successfully preventing potential losses exceeding $5.3 billion, scanning over 2.4 billion transactions, protecting more than 787 million dApp connections, and intercepting over 71 million attacks, contributing significantly to the safety and stability of the Web3 ecosystem. [14]

Conclusion

In February 2025, a total of 134 funding deals were completed, amounting to $1.02 billion. Although this represents a decline compared to January, the overall trend remains stable. The CeFi sector, with its mature institutionalized scenarios, continues to be the main hub for large-scale funding. At the same time, emerging fields such as blockchain security, infrastructure, and Ordinals have also garnered attention. Most financing deals were of medium to small scale, with Pre-Seed and Seed rounds accounting for more than half, indicating that early-stage projects still attract capital. Despite varied performance in the application layer sector, successful funding rounds for projects like Raise, Cygnus Finance, ResearchHub, Ethena, and Blockaid highlight the innovative vitality within their respective niches and suggest the significant potential Web3 holds in areas such as financial services, technological innovation, and security.


References:

1. Cryptorank ,https://cryptorank.io/funding-analytics
2. Cryptorank,https://cryptorank.io/funding-rounds
3. Raise ,https://www.raise.com/
4. Fortune ,https://fortune.com/2025/02/26/exclusive-raise-nets-63-million-in-round-led-by-haun-ventures-to-build-a-crypto-platform-for-gift-cards/
5. Cygnus Finance,https://www.cygnus.finance/
6. X,https://x.com/CygnusFi/status/1892103909185028208
7. ResearchHub,https://www.researchhub.com/
8. X,https://x.com/ResearchHub/status/1892259384790540638
9. Ethena,https://ethena.fi/
10. Bloomberg Law,https://news.bloomberglaw.com/business-and-practice/ethena-crypto-project-raises-100-million-to-fund-finance-foray
11. Defillama,https://defillama.com/protocol/ethena
12. Blockaid,https://www.blockaid.io/
13. Bloomberg,https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-02-18/ribbit-leads-50-million-investment-in-crypto-security-platform
14. State of the chain,https://stateofthechain.com/

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