Venture investment in crypto and blockchain companies surged 31% in the second quarter of 2026 compared to the first quarter, while deal volume rose 10%, according to a September 16 report from Galaxy Research. The rebound pushed total first-half investment to $10.018 billion across 744 deals, putting the industry on pace for roughly $20.037 billion for the full year — slightly below the $20.3 billion recorded in 2025.
Crypto VC just posted its best quarter in a while.Q2 2026: $5.6B deployed across 384 deals: capital up 31% QoQ, deal count up 10%, and later-stage rounds soaking up ~78% of the dollars.A few numbers worth your attention:– US startups: 73.5% of capital, 39.1% of deals.-…
— Galaxy Research (@glxyresearch) September 16, 2026
Q2 Rebound Driven by Later-Stage Financing
The second quarter saw $5.683 billion deployed across 384 deals, a sharp recovery from Q1 when startups received around $4 billion across 355 deals. Galaxy’s Q1 report showed capital falling by about half quarter-over-quarter after a large later-stage financing surge in late 2025.
The Q2 rebound was larger in dollar terms than in transaction volume. Capital increased 31% while deal count rose only 10%, indicating that larger financings accounted for much of the quarterly increase. Galaxy said the rise was driven primarily by later-stage transactions, with mature companies receiving approximately 78% of the capital invested during the quarter.
Deal Sizes Reach New Highs
Galaxy reported a median crypto deal size of roughly $4.9 million in Q2, a new high. However, valuation information was available for only 16% of Q2 transactions and was heavily weighted toward later-stage companies.
By transaction count, pre-seed rounds accounted for 21% of completed deals, while later-stage investments represented 26%. This distribution produced a large gap between the number of early-stage transactions and the amount of capital committed to mature companies. Early-stage businesses continued to attract deals, but larger financing rounds drove the majority of dollars invested.
Trading and Exchange Category Dominates Capital Allocation
Trading, exchange, investing and lending companies received roughly $3.523 billion during the quarter, representing close to three-fifths of all crypto venture capital invested in Q2. DeFi followed with approximately $478 million. More than 90% of the capital invested in the trading, exchange, investing and lending category went to later-stage companies.
By deal count, trading, exchange, investing and lending companies recorded 51 transactions. DeFi and payments/rewards each recorded 40 deals. Web3, NFT, DAO, metaverse and gaming companies completed 37 deals, followed by tokenization with 36, enterprise blockchain with 34, and infrastructure with 32.
Bitcoin Price Correlation Remains Weak
Galaxy’s data shows that the relationship between bitcoin prices and crypto venture activity remains weaker than during the 2017 and 2021 cycles. Bitcoin reached new highs in late 2025 while venture activity moved unevenly, although both bitcoin and venture investment increased during Q2 2026.
U.S. Companies Capture Lion’s Share of Capital
U.S.-headquartered companies captured 73.5% of the capital represented in Galaxy’s Q2 dataset. The United Kingdom followed with 4%, while France accounted for 3.2%. The U.S. share was smaller when measured by transaction count: American companies represented 39.1% of the 384 deals, followed by the United Kingdom at 7% and Singapore at 5.7%.
The geographic concentration was higher than in Q1, when U.S.-based startups received 70.2% of capital and represented 43.5% of completed transactions, according to Galaxy’s earlier report.
Recent Notable Financing Activity
Recent financing activity has included transactions involving exchanges, stablecoin payments, and tokenized markets. Payward, the parent company of Kraken, was the largest disclosed crypto funding deal during the September 5–11 period after Nasdaq Ventures agreed to invest $100 million in the company. Latitude raised $35 million in a Series A during the same week to develop stablecoin-based cross-border payment infrastructure, while Antarctic Exchange announced a $7 million financing tied to its derivatives trading platform.
Fundraising Concentrated Among Fewer New Funds
Five new crypto-focused funds raised approximately $3.9 billion in Q2, according to Galaxy. The firm said the number of new funds was the lowest for a quarter since Q3 2019. Galaxy cited macroeconomic conditions, investor interest in artificial intelligence, spot crypto exchange-traded products, and digital asset treasury companies as factors competing for allocator capital.
The report stated that “fund managers still face a difficult environment.”
The dollar amount raised was higher than the roughly $1.1 billion secured across eight new funds in Q1. Galaxy’s first-quarter report described Q1 as the lowest quarterly new-fund count since Q3 2020. If first-half fundraising continues at the same pace, Galaxy estimates that crypto venture funds could raise around $10 billion during 2026, above the $8.75 billion raised in 2025. The average fund size reached approximately $377.98 million, while the median fund size stood near $80 million.
Weekly Activity Shows Continued Momentum
During September 5–11, five disclosed crypto funding deals totaled $151 million, according to crypto.news. Payward’s $100 million transaction accounted for roughly two-thirds of the weekly total. Galaxy’s next quarterly dataset will provide the next measurement of venture activity after the Q2 rebound.
