Investment & Financing

Former FTX employees founded Backpack, which is in talks for a $1 billion valuation and a $50 million raise to become a unicorn. 1 billion tokens, with 37.5% locked after IPO and 37.5% circulating before IPO to prevent retail selling. Airdropped 250 million to early supporters and 1 million to Mad Lads NFT. Starting from Solana wallets, raised $17 million in Series A.

Xross Road announces the completion of a $1.5 million Pre-Seed funding round, which will be used for the development of its AI comic creation tool HANASEE, and to initiate the closed beta testing of the tool. Future plans include launching a blockchain copyright management system and seeking collaborations with intellectual property rights holders.

Stripe is arranging a new round of tender offers with a valuation of at least $140 billion, a jump of over $30 billion from last year's $107 billion. This payments giant has been frequently conducting tender offers since 2024, allowing employees to cash out without going public. Co-founder John Collison stated in January this year that Stripe is not in a rush to go public, as they lay off 300 employees while continuing to hire.

MrBeast's Beast Industries acquires the teen-oriented Step Bank. The YouTuber with 466 million subscribers received a 200 million investment from BitMine in January and applied for the "MrBeast Financial" trademark, including crypto trading services, in October. Step has 6.5 million users and has raised 500 million dollars from celebrities.

Sports blockchain platform Chiliz announces a three-phase roadmap to prepare for the 2026 FIFA World Cup. The plan includes re-entering the US market, launching national team tokens, activating Omnichain cross-chain functionality, and a 10% profit buyback mechanism for CHZ tokens. Future steps will introduce performance-based supply regulation, with victories triggering burns and losses leading to issuance increases. Starting in 2027, sports revenue streams and intellectual property will be tokenized.

Beast Industries has acquired the mobile banking app Step, aiming to expand financial services. Step has 7 million users and previously raised $500 million. This move will leverage technology to improve users' financial health while exploring DeFi feature integration.

Odaily Planet Daily reports that the privacy stablecoin project Zoth has announced the completion of a new round of strategic financing, with the specific amount not disclosed. Taisu Ventures led the investment, along with NFT project "Pudgy Penguins" CEO and owner Luca Netz and JLabs Digital.

Last weekend, MetaDAO, a Solana ecosystem platform, failed in its first ICO project Hurupay, which did not reach the minimum funding goal of $3 million, raising only about $2 million. The community believes that the reasons for the failure include overvaluation of the project, unclear team background, and changes in financing terms. All participant funds will be refunded.

Milwaukee Bucks forward Giannis Antetokounmpo has invested in the prediction market platform Kalshi, becoming the first active NBA player to directly invest in a federally regulated event contract exchange. The two-time MVP announced the partnership on Friday, stating that he will participate as a shareholder and collaborate on live events. Kalshi confirmed the agreement but emphasized that internal regulations prohibit Giannis Antetokounmpo from trading in any NBA-related markets.

Pump.fun acquires trading terminal Vyper on Thursday, expanding again after acquiring Padre in October 2025. Vyper will be integrated into Terminal and will cease service, with this acquisition focusing on EVM and Base chain support. On February 2, Pump.fun issued nearly 30,000 tokens, far exceeding the average of 9,000-13,000 per day in October.

Tether invests $150 million to acquire a 12% stake in Gold.com, integrating the gold token XAUT into the platform. Driven by gold prices surpassing $5,000, the tokenized gold market has surged from $1.3 billion to $5.5 billion, with XAUT holding over 60% market share.

Stablecoin payment company Rain announces latest funding round raises $250 million, with the company's valuation reaching $1.95 billion, officially entering the unicorn club. This round was led by ICONIQ, with participation from top firms such as Sapphire Ventures. Rain co-founder and CEO Farooq Malik stated that the total funding amount has exceeded $338 million.

Tether CEO clarifies that the 20 billion fundraising is a misunderstanding; it is only an extreme scenario cap, not an actual target. Compared to an AI loss valuation of 800 billion, Tether earns over 10 billion annually to support a 500 billion valuation. With a US debt holding of 141.6 billion, it ranks as the 18th largest holder globally, surpassing Deutsche Bank. The launch of the compliant stablecoin USAT, targeting the US market, and the appointment of Bo Hines as CEO to compete with Circle.

According to Cointelegraph Research report, cryptocurrency venture capital is expected to reach $34 billion in 2025, primarily driven by the tokenization of real-world assets, with funding exceeding $2.5 billion. Institutional investors are increasingly focused on sustainable revenue models, leading to an 18% decline in seed funding, while Series B funding has grown by 90%. The total market capitalization of tokenized RWA has surpassed $38 billion, with significant room for growth. Ethereum Layer 2 funding enthusiasm has waned, with only $162 million in 2025, a 72% decrease.

Odaily Planet Daily reports that Prediction Market Opinion has announced the completion of a $20 million Series A funding round, with Hack VC, Jump Crypto, Primitive Ventures, Decasonic, and others participating. Currently, its trading scope has expanded to macroeconomics, pre-token issuance events, culture, and cryptocurrencies, covering data such as CPI figures. The data shows that the company is currently handling about one-third of global prediction market trading volume, with open contracts exceeding 1.3

Axiology completed a €5 million seed round under the European DLT pilot regulatory framework, with total funding reaching €7 million. As a licensed company, Axiology focuses on the fixed income securities market, operating on a licensed XRP Ledger, offering various financial services, and planning to participate in central bank digital currency projects.

Odaily Planet Daily reports that a16z General Partner Guy Wuollet posted on X that a16z will lead a $2.5 million seed round investment in prediction market platform Kairos, which will provide the fastest prediction market trading services for professional traders.

Nasdaq-listed Bitcoin treasury company Jiuzi Holdings announces the signing of a strategic cooperation memorandum with Morgan International Finance, which plans to invest $90 million. The funds will be used to support blockchain and Web3 ecosystem expansion and digital asset strategy.

Flying Tulip A round financing is $25.5 million, valuing $1 billion, plus seed round total financing of $225.5 million. Curated has raised 50 million, and CoinList will allocate 200 million next week. 1.36 billion was promised, but only 400 million remained. Core innovation "Perpetual put option": Burn FT tokens at any time to redeem the principal, at a price of $0.10/coin.

Bulk Trade in the Perp DEX space attempts to achieve centralized trading speed and decentralized settlement capabilities through a customized Solana validator client architecture. Its innovative order matching and propagation logic significantly improve trading efficiency, and by using a centralized current-price order book, it eliminates liquidity issues common in traditional DEXs, ensuring the security and execution efficiency of trades. Currently in internal testing, looking forward to its performance on the public testnet.