ChainCatcher news, according to CoinDesk, Galaxy Digital's latest report shows that global cryptocurrency startup investments in the third quarter of 2024 amounted to $2.4 billion, a 20% decrease from the previous quarter, with the number of investment deals down by 17%. Alex Thorn, head of research at Galaxy Digital, stated that the high interest rate environment, the launch of spot crypto ETFs, and the shadow of the industry's collapse in 2022 are still affecting institutional investors' decisions.In the first three quarters of this year, the crypto industry has accumulated $8 billion in investments, and the total financing for the year is expected to be roughly on par with 2023, far below the levels of over $30 billion per year in 2021 and 2022. Nevertheless, Thorn pointed out that the ETF-driven market rally is intensifying competition among venture capital firms, benefiting entrepreneurs in obtaining better valuation conditions.The report indicates that 85% of the funds are directed towards early-stage projects, with the exchange, lending, and trading platform sectors attracting the most investment, approximately $460 million. The United States remains the primary source of investment, accounting for 56% of the total investment amount. Projects that combine crypto and artificial intelligence received about $270 million in investments, a fivefold increase from the previous quarter.

ChainCatcher news, according to on-chain analyst @ai_9684xtpa's monitoring, the whale ranked fourth in Blast staking has added 39,700 BNB to participate in new coin mining, with a total investment amount reaching 37.42 million USD. This is the highest investment amount in the last four mining participations.It is reported that in the past three hours, this whale has borrowed another 39,700 BNB from Venus and Radiant, and then deposited it into Binance. As of now, the total investment has reached 79,293 BNB.

ChainCatcher news, the OKX Web3 DeFi sector has announced its annual data for 2023, with a total of 66 new protocols added, over 50 Bonus investment products launched, a total user investment amount reaching 2.8 billion USD, and a cumulative interest increase amount of 1.5 million USD.It is reported that the OKX Web3 wallet DeFi sector is a one-stop on-chain investment platform, now aggregating over 15 public chains, 80 projects, and 200 protocols with various investment products. It supports users in one-click cross-coin investments, automatic yield calculations, and other convenient operations, helping them improve capital utilization while saving on Gas, making DeFi investment simpler.

According to ChainCatcher, as reported by Econovill, the South Korean crypto venture capital firm Hashed made a total of 29 investments in 2023, with a total investment amount of 36.8 billion won (approximately 28.44 million USD). By sector, blockchain infrastructure accounted for 21%, gaming for 21%, finance for 21%, and IP and content-related startups for 15%.In addition, the firm has also invested in various early-stage startups that can leverage blockchain infrastructure in the long term, including O2O platforms, sharing economy, and artificial intelligence startups. By country/region, South Korea accounted for the largest share at 38%, followed by North America (21%), Europe (7%), and other Asian regions such as Singapore (34%); there are a total of 20 newly invested companies, most of which are early-stage startups from seed to Series A.It is reported that Hashed is currently operating its first fund of 120 billion won and its second fund of 240 billion won through Hashed Ventures.

ChainCatcher news, according to The Block, as of the first quarter of this year, Binance Labs has accumulated $9 billion in assets, up from $7.5 billion in August last year. Binance Labs' investment portfolio includes over 200 projects from more than 25 countries across six continents, of which 50 are incubated by Binance Labs. A spokesperson for Binance stated that the theoretical return on investment for the institution is more than 10 times its investments.Binance's Chief Business Officer Yibo Ling discussed the impact of U.S. regulatory pressure on its venture capital arm, Binance Labs, in an interview with The Block, saying, "Nothing I can think of has really affected Binance Labs." "The impact on us hasn't been different. If there are good projects anywhere, we are interested in engaging." (source link)

ChainCatcher news, Zhao Changpeng tweeted that he has just signed investment agreements with 8 projects. Although the investment amount is not large, the projects are all excellent.Previously, ChainCatcher reported on November 10 that Binance announced the 12 projects selected for the fifth season of the Binance Incubator program, covering areas such as infrastructure, zkDID, DeFi, tools, security, gaming, and payments.The 12 projects are DeFi derivatives protocol Bracket Protocol, operational protocol DappOS for managing crypto infrastructure, Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) HANA, Swedish Web3 company Kryptoskatt, composable data protocol Mind Network, Web3 identity infrastructure Notebook Labs, on-chain randomness protocol Ontropy, Web3 payment product PIP, Web3 security service Sandbags, Web3 development security infrastructure and education Wallet Guard, and privacy-preserving decentralized KYC solution zkPass. (source link)