Investment map of well-known institutions at home and abroad in 2020: Which invested projects will be potential stocks?

2020 is coming to an end. The crypto market has experienced a trough this year, but it has also grown rapidly. The price of Bitcoin has exceeded $20,000 for the first time since its birth, the crypto market value has hit a new high, DeFi has emerged, and NFT has made its debut... This field is undergoing tremendous changes.

As the market warms up, investment institutions have become more active. Even many traditional funds have set their sights on crypto projects. According to statistics from overseas media The Block, nearly a thousand blockchain-related investment transactions have occurred this year. At the same time, through these transactions, The Block selected the 10 most active crypto funds in 2020.

These active funds include: Alameda Research, Coinbase Ventures, CoinFund, ConsenSys Labs, Digital Currency Group, Dragonfly Capital, Hashkey Capital, NGC Ventures, Pantera Capital and Polychain Capital.

DeFi projects are the most popular type among investors, accounting for about 31% of their investments.

BlockBeats added some omitted investment institutions at the end of the article, such as Multicoin Capital, IOSG, Paradigm, etc. These funds also invested in the crypto field in 2020 and paid attention to the development of infrastructure construction.

The following is the original text of The Block Research:

The Block analyzed 873 blockchain-related investment transactions this year and selected the top ten most active crypto funds in 2020.

By using Pitchbook, Crunchbase and The Block's own information search, the top 10 most active funds were mapped. The top ten active funds in 2020 and their investment status:

Six of the 10 most active funds in 2019 have again become the most active funds in 2020. These companies include Coinbase Ventures, Digital Currency Group (DCG), Dragonfly Capital, NGC Ventures, Pantera Capital and Polychain Capital. (2019 report "Investment Map of Well-known Domestic and Foreign Institutions in 2019: Which Invested Projects Will Be Potential Stocks?")

The five new funds that were not on the list last year but are now on the list this year are Alameda Research, CoinFund, ConsenSys Labs and Hashkey Capital.

Among the projects that received investment, Acala Network, Amber Group and Dune Analytics attracted a lot of attention from investors. The top ten active funds contributed about 50% of the financing funds for Acala Network. Four of the top ten active funds invested in Amber Group and Dune Analytics.

List of the most active blockchain investors by category in 2020

This year, venture fund Coinbase Ventures has made the most investments, with 25 in total. Coinbase Ventures' investments are very diverse, with no single project accounting for more than 20% of its total investments this year.

The second most active investor this year, Alameda Research, has a much more concentrated investment. More than half of Alameda's investments are in DeFi projects, with trading and trading platform-related projects being the second largest category. The Hong Kong-based crypto quantitative trading company has seen a significant increase in trading flows this year, with strategic investments benefiting FTX and Serum.

Among all funds, DCG is still a fund focused on banking and payments. It has invested in Avanti Financial Group, Circle, Coinme, Lolli, Transparent Systems and wyre.

Most popular investment categories

One of the main investment trends this year has been funding for DeFi applications. The success and quality of new projects have attracted the participation of some funds or companies that had little exposure to this sub-sector at the beginning of the year. As we previously pointed out in our Q3 investment summary, the DeFi sector is the most popular category, accounting for about 20% of all venture capital.

This year, the investment trends of the top ten active funds have increased in correlation with industry development. Among the 121 companies invested, 37 are related to the DeFi field.

To facilitate readers’ understanding, BlockBeats summarizes the projects invested by the above-mentioned funds and attaches a brief introduction:

Alameda Research:

Perpetual Protocol: AMM Solution

ParaSwap: Decentralized Trading Platform

Dune Analytics: Blockchain Data Analysis Platform

Linear: Cross-chain synthetic asset trading protocol

UpBots: Trading Ecosystem Solutions

Hedget: DeFi derivatives platform

Archax: UK FCA registered crypto asset company

APY.Finance: Liquidity Mining Aggregation Platform

Opium Network: On-chain derivatives protocol

Persistence: NFT bridging project in the financial sector

UNION: DeFi Risk Management Protocol

RAMP DEFI: Decentralized Financial Solutions

Mask: an open source encryption product on a social platform

3Commas: Intelligent trading terminal, automatic trading robot

Razor: Decentralized Oracle

Math Wallet: Universal Cryptocurrency Wallet

Stacked: Smart Crypto Asset Investing

DODO: A decentralized trading platform based on active market maker algorithm

CryptoLocally: Cryptocurrency Trading Platform

OIN: The first DeFi platform on Ontology to provide liquidity mining and lending through cross-chain

Frontier: Off-chain DeFi aggregation layer

Covalent: Ethereum data analytics startup

Coinbase Ventures:

DODO: A decentralized trading platform based on active market maker algorithm

Dune Analytics: Blockchain Data Analysis Platform

CoinDCX: Indian Crypto Exchange

NEAR: A project dedicated to implementing sharding to increase public chain TPS

FALCONX: Cryptocurrency Trading Platform

The Graph: A decentralized indexing protocol

Zora: Online marketplace for limited edition tokenized products

Tagomi: Cryptocurrency Broker

KEEP: A privacy protocol layer on the Ethereum chain

MULTIS: Crypto-asset bank for businesses

CoFiX: A decentralized trading protocol based on NEST oracle design

AXELAR: Blockchain underlying technology and protocols, tools and API solutions

Blocknative: Data startup

Amber Group: Global Crypto Financial Services Provider

Bitski: Crypto Wallet

Notional: Liquidity pool that gives tokens time value

Bitso: Latin America's largest crypto exchange

Arweave: A FileCoin-like decentralized storage platform

Coin Metics: Crypto financial data provider

Zapper: DeFi startup developing user meter

Authereum: Decentralized Application Platform

Dapper: Game development studio, CryptoKitties development studio

Audius: Streaming service provider

CURV: Cryptocurrency Security Startup

CoinFund:

NEAR: A project dedicated to implementing sharding to increase public chain TPS

LedgerX: Officially approved encrypted digital asset trading platform in the United States

Blockdaemon: Blockchain node provider

API3: Web 3.0 decentralized API service

NUMERAI: A Hedge Fund Developed Around Distributed Trading Algorithms

Archax: UK FCA registered crypto asset company

Acala Network: Designing Stablecoins and DeFi Ecosystem Companies for Polkadot

Dapper: Game development studio, CryptoKitties development studio

BoardRoom: DeFi governance solution

ParaSwap: Decentralized Trading Platform

Stacked: Smart Crypto Asset Investing

Zapper: DeFi startup developing user meter

NFTX: NFT Index Fund Based on Ethereum

Delta Exchange: Cryptocurrency Derivatives Trading Platform

Opyn: DeFi hedging tool

ConsenSys Labs:

Trakx: A one-stop platform for trading cryptocurrency indexes

Cryptio: Accounting and auditing company for digital assets

Apex:E3: Transactional analytics company

Outlet: Decentralized Banking

SimpleID: A tool to increase engagement and retention in blockchain applications

INCENTCO: Performance Management Cloud Platform

Atomic Loans: Decentralized cross-chain lending platform

Fluidity: AirSwap Developer

Sorare: Fantasy Football Game

PoolTogether: The “No-Loss Lottery” DeFi Project

Quorum: JPMorgan’s blockchain arm

HashEdge: A peer-to-peer marketplace for crypto mining and staking, similar to a decentralized “eBay” marketplace

PieDAO: A brief introduction to the asset allocation decentralized autonomous organization

Horizon Blockchain Games: Building decentralized online games on Ethereum

ACTUS Protocol: Decentralized Financial Internet Protocol

DCG:

Transparent Systems: Seattle-based payment clearing company

Zabo: Software-as-a-Service Startup

Horizon Blockchain Games: Building decentralized online games on Ethereum

Skew: Crypto asset data analysis and trade execution platform for institutional investors

Lolli: Bitcoin Rewards Platform

Avanti Financial GroupL: A compliant bridge for the US dollar payment system and a custodian of digital assets

Paradigm: An institutional-grade platform that automates the OTC digital asset trading process

CURV: Cryptocurrency Security Startup

The Graph: A decentralized indexing protocol

Circle: Digital payment tool, cryptocurrency service company

Acala Network: Designing Stablecoins and DeFi Ecosystem Companies for Polkadot

Dune Analytics: Blockchain Data Analysis Platform

Jiko: Small independent financial institution

NIFTEX: Self-service NFT liquidity solution

API3: Web 3.0 decentralized API service

Fireblocks: A platform for securing digital asset transfers

Slingshot: Decentralized Exchange

Coinme: Bitcoin ATM Company

DECENT: An open source non-profit digital content distribution network

Coin Metrics: Open source blockchain data and analysis project

Dragonfly Capital:

Paradigm: An institutional-grade platform that automates the OTC digital asset trading process

Bybit: A trading platform focusing on perpetual contracts for digital currencies

TaxBit: Cryptocurrency Tax Software

1inch: Decentralized token trading aggregation platform

DDX: Decentralized Derivatives Trading Protocol

Celo: A digital payments platform

BABEL Finance: Comprehensive Crypto Financial Services Provider

NUMERAI: A Hedge Fund Developed Around Distributed Trading Algorithms

Amber Group: Global Crypto Financial Services Provider

Coin Metrics: Open source blockchain data and analysis project

Skynet: Decentralized file and application sharing platform

StableHouse: A global digital currency clearinghouse for real-time cross-chain payments

Dune Analytics: Blockchain Data Analysis Platform

Cozy Finance: DeFi risk management company

Opyn: DeFi hedging tool

Hashkey Capital:

Infinity Stones: A blockchain company that provides security maintenance for nodes

Blockdaemon: Blockchain node provider

XanPool: Automated Peer-to-Peer Crypto to Local Fiat Gateway

BlockFi: A startup that provides loans to digital asset owners

Moonbeam: Building cross-chain connected DApps

HashQuark: A blockchain mining pool focusing on PoS, DPoS and other consensus mechanism public chains

Zenlink: A cross-chain DEX protocol based on Polkadot

Mask: an open source encryption product on a social platform

O(1) Labs: Mina development team, the world's lightest blockchain

Opium Network: On-chain derivatives protocol

Braintrust: A marketplace that connects organizations directly to top technical talent

BoringDAO: Infrastructure connecting blockchain assets and the DeFi world

Lightnet: Building the next generation of financial mobile network on Stellar

Acala Network: Designing Stablecoins and DeFi Ecosystem Companies for Polkadot

NGC Ventures:

Banxa: Fiat Currency Channel Compliance Provider

Phemex: Cryptocurrency derivatives trading platform

Hedget: DeFi derivatives platform

Persistence: NFT bridging project in the financial sector

Terra Virtua: NFT digital collection platform that allows cross-platform interaction

Razor: Decentralized Oracle

Bifrost: A middleware platform between DApps and protocols

Frontier: Off-chain DeFi aggregation layer

Kira Core: A decentralized solution using Tendermint and Cosmos SDK

Crust Network: A decentralized cloud ecosystem

Reef: A cross-chain DeFi operating system

Polkastarter: DEX focusing on cross-chain tokens and auctions

CryptoLocally: Cryptocurrency Trading Platform

O(1) Labs: Mina development team, the world's lightest blockchain

Litentry: Decentralized identity management service for Web 3.0

Linear: Work tracking tool

Pantera Capital:

Bakkt: A compliant digital currency trading platform

NEAR: A project dedicated to implementing sharding to increase public chain TPS

Coinme: Bitcoin ATM Company

API3: Web 3.0 decentralized API service

Wyre: Cross-border payment tool

Amber Group: Global Crypto Financial Services Provider

Bitso: Latin America's largest crypto exchange

Injective protocol:

Audius: Streaming service provider

Acala Network: Designing Stablecoins and DeFi Ecosystem Companies for Polkadot

DODO: A decentralized trading platform based on active market maker algorithm

1inch: Decentralized token trading aggregation platform

Transparent Systems: Seattle-based payment clearing company

Polychain Capital:

Alpha5: Bitcoin derivatives trading platform

Celo: A digital payments platform

Gauntlet: A Simulation Testbed for Crypto Networks

Notional: Liquidity pool that gives tokens time value

CoinDCX: India's largest cryptocurrency exchange

StakerDAO: DeFi Management Platform

Amber Group: Global Crypto Financial Services Provider

DDX: Decentralized Derivatives Trading Protocol

KEEP: A privacy protocol layer on the Ethereum chain

Acala Network: Designing Stablecoins and DeFi Ecosystem Companies for Polkadot

Liquity: A decentralized lending protocol

keeperDAO: DeFi’s on-chain liquidity underwriter

Polymarket: Trade Information Marketplace

River Financial: Helps users invest in Bitcoin businesses and provides technical support

YellowCard: Nigerian Cryptocurrency Exchange

BlockBeats has compiled some investment institutions that were not included in the original article of The Block. Their investment projects in 2020 are as follows:

Multicoin Capital:

Math Wallet: Universal Cryptocurrency Wallet

The Graph: A decentralized indexing protocol

Perpetual Protocol: AMM Solution

Dune Analytics: Blockchain Data Analysis Platform

TORUS: A Private Key Management Network

Swivel Finance: Decentralized fixed-rate lending and interest rate derivatives protocol

Braintrust: Freelance Marketplace

Alpha Finance Lab: Cross-chain DeFi ecosystem products

Audius: Streaming service provider

IOSG:

Mask Network: A portal that helps users seamlessly transition from Web2.0 to Web3.0

Razor: Decentralized Oracle

UMA: Trustless Financial Contracts and Decentralized Oracles

1inch: Decentralized token trading aggregation platform

Phala Network: Polkadot privacy computing parachain

Paradigm:

Fireblocks: A platform for securing digital asset transfers

Sia: A distributed private cloud network

Gauntlet: A Simulation Testbed for Crypto Networks

Uniswap: Decentralized Exchange

Reflexer Labs: A low volatility collateral project

Yield Protocol: A "fixed-rate lending" protocol based on Ethereum

KEEP: A privacy protocol layer on the Ethereum chain

Diem: Facebook's Crypto Stablecoin Project

Amber Group: Global Crypto Financial Services Provider