Crypto Funding Boom: Reality Check Behind the $169M Splash

Infrastructure Eats the World (Again)

Tools for Humanity’s acquisition of Dawn Wallet confirms what we’ve known since 2021: wallet wars are heating up. The real story? Former SpaceX engineer John Rising secured $4.2M for Stackup - his “account abstraction for enterprises” play might finally make corporate treasurers stop sweating over crypto custody.

Meanwhile, TON network’s $11.5M haul for EVM-compatible DeFi infrastructure smells like Telegram’s long-game to monetize 800M users. Smart move or desperate pivot? My Python scripts say watch the on-chain adoption metrics.

AI Mania Meets Web3 Hype Cycles

SparkChain AI’s $10.8M raise for “decentralized AI compute” checks all the buzzword boxes. But when I audited their GitHub last night, their “Sovereign Data Rollup” has fewer commits than my weekend hackathon project. Meanwhile, PublicAI’s brainwave-data headset could either revolutionize BCI or become 2025’s most awkward wearable - jury’s out until clinical trials.

The Big Bets You Missed

• Eigen Labs’ $70M from a16z proves restaking is now institutional-grade (and possibly systemic-risk-grade)
• That suspiciously vague $910M “cross-border settlement” project XFX? Backed by Coinbase Ventures but zero technical docs published
• Quantum-resistant Bitcoin tools got funded! (About damn time, says every cold wallet owner)

Data doesn’t lie: VC money flows where regulatory uncertainty is lowest. This week’s lesson? Build infrastructure, slap ‘AI’ on your pitch deck, and avoid anything resembling a security token.