Crypto venture funding rose to about $2.099 billion in October 2026 , up 65.4% from September, with Kalshi’s $1 billion round topping the disclosed deals. But RootData’s figures show a sharp annual decline: funding remained 65.3% below October 2025, while the number of deals fell 40.2%.
Key takeaways
October’s disclosed deal count reached 67, an 8.1% monthly increase.
Kalshi secured a $40 billion valuation in its latest financing.
Major deals backed payments, AI computing, tokenization and bitcoin insurance.
Crypto venture funding rebounds monthly, trails last year
RootData recorded 67 disclosed deals for October, compared with 62 in September 2026 and 112 in October 2025. The figures use records available on October 29, 2026. Deals without disclosed amounts count toward the transaction total but not the funding total.
September’s disclosed funding stood at $1.269 billion; October 2025’s total was $6.046 billion. Those comparisons put October’s monthly recovery in crypto venture funding alongside a much weaker annual picture.
DeFi accounted for about 26.9% of deals, followed by CeFi at 17.9% and AI at 14.9%. RWA/DePIN represented 10.4%; Tool/Wallet and L1/L2 each contributed 4.5%; Privacy accounted for 1.5%, and other categories made up 19.4%.
Kalshi reaches $40 billion valuation
CFTC-regulated prediction exchange Kalshi raised $1 billion in a Series G disclosed on October 29, 2026. Sequoia Capital and Wellington Management co-led the round, which valued Kalshi at $40 billion, up from $22 billion in May 2026.
According to Kalshi, the funds raised will be directed toward institutional sales, distribution, product development, and international expansion, with a focus on Latin America and Europe. Planned offerings include indices, single-stock perpetual futures and compute markets.
The exchange reported more than 30 million accounts and annualized trading volume above $1 trillion.
AI funding spans blockchains, GPUs and enterprise agents
Pearl secured $130 million , split between $55 million in equity and $75 million for a GPU infrastructure fund. Investors included Lightspeed, Ribbit and Square Peg.
Its layer-1 blockchain uses Proof of Useful Work , linking block production to GPU matrix multiplication. Miners can train or run AI models while validating blocks, earning block rewards and inference fees.
BUZZ Alpha Cloud, a subsidiary of HIVE Digital Technologies, secured roughly $129 million in credit carrying a fixed 9.0% annual interest rate over a three-year term, which covers around 80% of the project’s expenses. This funding backs a GPU rollout in Canada tied to a three-year agreement with Cohere.
According to HIVE’s CEO, the financing is connected to a roughly $165 million acquisition of 2,303 NVIDIA GB200 GPUs, with the equity portion covered by previously issued 0% convertible bonds. The delivery timeline points to late in the fourth quarter of 2026.
Nous Research, an open-source AI collective, secured $90 million through a Series B round led by Robot Ventures at a $1.5 billion valuation, while also debuting an enterprise AI agent. This brought its total funding to date to $158 million.
Capital flows into payments and tokenized funds
Whop, a payments API company, secured $200 million in Series D funding at a $5.09 billion valuation, with Sequoia Capital and Shopify Ventures serving as co-leads. Its tools cover business setup, payment distribution and operations for entrepreneurs and small merchants; transaction fees average about 6%.
French regulated tokenization platform Spiko secured $90 million in an NEA-led Series B, bringing total funding to $120 million. It issues UCITS money-market funds as on-chain shares, representing assets including U.S. Treasuries. An independent custodian bank holds the assets outside Spiko’s balance sheet.
Hong Kong-based PhotonPay raised $40 million in a Blockchain Capital-led Series C for multi-asset wallets, global card issuance, local clearing and financial tools for AI agents. As of August, the company had logged $65 billion in annualized transaction volume and served over 200,000 business customers.
Stablecoin payments infrastructure provider Noah added $16 million to its seed financing, taking the round to $38 million. Noah said it had signed over 150 customers since the start of 2026 and covered more than 150 markets and 60 currencies. Funding will support regulatory coverage, engineering and compliance hiring, and a New York office.
Bitcoin insurance and embedded banking secure backing
Bermuda-based Meanwhile raised $37.5 million in a Bain Capital Crypto-led round, lifting cumulative funding above $180 million. Its BTC Life 1-Pay whole-life policy serves high-net-worth clients outside the United States, with premiums and death benefits denominated in bitcoin. After one year, policyholders can borrow up to 90% of policy value.
Meow raised $31.6 million in a Stifel-led Series B, with Archetype VC participating. Its embedded banking services let enterprises and AI agents open USD checking accounts and request debit cards, with USD, USDC, USDT and SWIFT payouts supported across more than 150 countries.
Article produced with the assistance of artificial intelligence and reviewed by the editorial team.
