Bullish Bets Big: $1.1B IPO, Ethereum Moves, and Web3 Domination

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2025-08-16 09:01:00

Bullish just dropped a billion-dollar mic—and Wall Street's scrambling to pick it up.

The IPO play: A $1.1 billion public debut screams institutional FOMO. Because nothing says 'legitimacy' like traditional finance cosplaying as crypto evangelists.

Ethereum's sugar rush: Fresh capital floods ETH infrastructure—proving once again that smart money backs programmable money.

Web3 land grab: Services over speculation. Bullish isn't just hodling—they're building the rails for finance's messy, decentralized future.

Closing thought: Watch the suits try to short-circuit decentralization while pocketing the profits. The irony's thicker than a Bitcoin maximalist's skull.

Infographic by Incrypted.

Classic venture capital

During this period, 14 projects received funding from venture capital companies. In particular:

$57 million — 1Kosmos. The company, which specializes in identity verification and passwordless authentication, has raised funds in a Series B funding round, including a credit line from Bridge Bank. The round was led by Forgepoint Capital, along with Origami’s Oquirrh Ventures and other investors, including Craig Abod, NextEra Energy Ventures, Gula Tech Adventures, and the 1Kosmos management team.
$19.5 million — Shrapnel. The blockchain gaming company, a developer of an FPS game in the extraction shooter genre, has announced the inflow of capital in an undisclosed funding round. The investors are Polychain Capital, Griffin Gaming Partners, and Gala Games, and the funds will be used for the global launch of the game.
$16 million — Transak. The company that develops payment infrastructure for Web3 has reported on the investment received in a strategic funding round. It was led by IDG Capital and Tether with the participation of Primal Capital, 1kx, Protein Capital, and Fuel Ventures, and the funds will be used to expand payment solutions with stablecoins and enter new markets.
$15 million — Zoth. A global trade finance online marketplace offering high-yield fixed income instruments based on tokenized real-world assets (RWAs) has closed a strategic funding round led by private equity firm Bolts Capital. The funds will be used to expand the platform’s capabilities and develop solutions for the development of RWAs in the blockchain ecosystem.

$13.4 million — USD.AI. A fintech protocol for lending to artificial intelligence (AI) companies using real-world infrastructure as collateral has received funds in a Series A round from Big Brain Holdings, Framework Ventures, CMT Digital, Arbitrum Foundation, Flowdesk, Hermeneutic Investments, and FWL Capital. The funds will be used to develop the protocol and support new AI projects.

$9.5 million — Mesh. The crypto payment network has obtained investments from PayPal Ventures, Coinbase Ventures, Uphold, Mirana Ventures, SBI Investment, Overlook Ventures, Kingsway Capital, Moderne Ventures, and CE-Ventures. The funding will accelerate global network expansion, API scaling, and product development for hundreds of crypto and payment platforms.
$8 million — Mecka. The company has raised funds in a seed round of financing led by NEO. Other investors included SV Angel, Jason Choi, Andrew Kang, Vance Spencer, and 10 other participants. It provides annotated multimodal datasets of sensor and video data for training AI models in robotics, digital twins, world models, and generative systems.
$4.9 million — HoneyCoin. The Web3 platform that provides money transfer and payment services, allowing users to send, receive, and manage funds, has attracted investment in a seed round of funding. Investors include Antler, Stellar Development Foundation, Visa, Flourish Ventures, Vasily Shapovalov, and five other participants.
$4.5 million — Ark of Panda. The blockchain gaming ecosystem that combines GameFi and fan economies has announced investment in an undisclosed funding round. Investors include Tido Capital, Web3Link, LF Labs Capital, Foster Labs, Wabi Sabi Trading Crypto Fund, and six other participants, and the funds will be used to develop the Web3 innovation hub and expand its partner network.

$4.1 million — HackQuest. The educational platform for Web3 development has received capital in the pre-series A round. Animoca Brands, Outlier Ventures, Hashkey Capital, One Piece Labs, Paul Taylor, and nine other investors participated in the financing, and the funds raised will be used to develop the platform and expand educational opportunities.
$3.6 million — OpenAsset. The blockchain fintech company has recorded a strategic investment from Dozen, a provider of financial VAN services. The partners plan to launch an integrated service that will combine the OpenMint stablecoin issuance platform with Dozen’s payment infrastructure.
$3 million — Riva Money. A payment company founded by Revolut and Wise that combines traditional and blockchain payments to modernise B2B transfers has raised funds in a pre-seed round of funding. The investment from Project A Ventures will be used to solve key problems in international money transfers, including increasing the speed and efficiency of transactions.
$400,000 — Silo Finance. The non-custodial lending protocol that allows for lending any crypto asset against another has closed a strategic round with investment from Sonic Labs. The funds will be used to develop the platform and expand the range of supported assets.

$253,000 — ODX. The Sonic-native mint-and-burn protocol that virtualizes multi-chain assets in xAssets for seamless use in DeFi has announced a strategic round of funding from Sonic Labs. The investment will be used to improve the technology and expand integrations in the DeFi ecosystem.

A number of other projects have attracted funding but have not disclosed the amount of investment.

TradeTide, an AI trading agent that combines market analysis, strategy execution, and trader training in a single system, raised investment in the seed round. Stratified Capital, CatcherVC, Candaq Fintech Group, Cryptogram Venture (CGV), and K24 Ventures participated in the funding, and the funds will be used to develop the platform and expand functionality.

Cool Cats, a digital content and merchandise company specializing in the creation and promotion of NFTs, has received capital in a strategic round from Animoca Brands. The funding will be used to expand the media franchise and increase the brand’s presence on the global market.

DeAgentAI, an AI-powered automated customer service platform, has closed a strategic round with investment from Momentum. The funding will help the company expand its AI solutions and improve the user experience.

Tokensales

This week, the following projects have launched their tokens:

Story Protocol, a developer of an open infrastructure protocol for intellectual property to stimulate creativity, raised $82 million in a private token sale from Heritage Distilling. The funds will be used to develop the protocol and attract new users;

Sui, a Tier 1 blockchain built on Rust and based on the Delegated Proof-of-Stake consensus mechanism, announced the inflow of $20 million in a private token sale from Mill City Ventures. The investment will be used to develop the ecosystem and scale the network;

PublicAI, a Web3 and AI company focusing on a distributed AI training network, raised $2.9 million in a public token sale. The funds will be used to develop infrastructure and scale the network for training AI models;

Perpl, a Monad-based deFi platform for trading perpetual futures through a centralised order book , announced that it has raised $250,000 from Echo in a private token sale. The funding will be used to improve the platform and expand trading capabilities;

Caesar, a crypto-backed AI research assistant and API platform that provides academically based answers with citations, recorded investment proceeds in a public token sale. Investors include dingaling, Michael Heinrich, S4mmy, Wrong User, Dith, and two other participants, and the funds will be used to develop the platform and expand AI functions;

The Open Network (TON), a decentralised blockchain platform for scalable and secure high-bandwidth applications, has received investment in a private token sale from Coinbase Ventures. The funding will be used to develop the network and improve the platform’s performance.

You can find out about current and upcoming token sales through the relevant section on the website, where all users can access information about active and upcoming asset sales campaigns. Our team also maintains a dedicated Telegram channel and monitors the most relevant events:

Incrypted infographics.

Corporate placements and transactions

Representatives of the institutional sector continue to accumulate funds to build up cryptocurrency reserves and expand their operations. Last week:

$1.11 billion — Bullish. The crypto exchange has raised funding through an initial public offering (IPO). The largest investors are co-founder Brendan Blumer, who will receive a 30.1% stake, and board member Kokuei Yuan with a 26.7% stake;
$425 million — ETHZilla (formerly 180 Life Sciences). The company has received private funding to implement its Ethereum treasury strategy. The round was backed by Electric Capital, Borderless Capital, and Polychain Capital, and the funds will be used to implement and scale the company’s crypto strategy.

$400 million — SharpLink Gaming. The company, which provides online marketing services for the sports betting and international iGaming markets, has closed a series of share purchase transactions with five global institutional investors at a price of $21.76 per share. The company will issue more than 18.3 million shares;

$50 million — Thumzup Media Corporation. The digital advertising and crypto asset accumulation company has reported on the investments received in the post-IPO round, selling all ordinary shares at $10 per share. The company plans to use the funds raised to invest in cryptocurrencies, purchase mining equipment, and finance its operations;

$6.84 million — H100 Group AB. The medical technology and longevity company has received funds in a post-IPO financing round. The funds will be used to expand products and research in the healthcare sector.

Acquisitions and mergers

In the period from 9 to 16 August, the market recorded one M&A deal.

Offchain Labs, the developer of the Arbitrum One L2 solution for scaling dApps on Ethereum, has acquired ZeroDev, a company that provides infrastructure for smart wallets and account abstraction in Web3 applications. The amount of the deal, which will strengthen Arbitrum’s infrastructure capabilities for developers, was not disclosed.

Accelerators, grants, and DAO funding

This week, ecosystems and DAOs did not allocate funds to support projects.

Top investors

The most active investors of the week were Sonic, Framework Ventures, Andrew Kang, Animoca Brands, and Antler, according to CryptoRank.

Infographic by Incrypted.

What is the focus of investors’ attention?

Between 9 and 16 August, projects from such segments as blockchain services, DeFi, CeFi, GameFi, blockchain infrastructure, and NFTs attracted funding. Investors focused on blockchain services.