Crypto14 August, 20262 min read
Crypto Industry Raised $11.2 Billion in 2026, CoinDesk Says It Shunned Permissionless Experiments
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Crypto startups raised $11.2 billion in first half of 2026, all to regulated, permissioned firms. No funding went to permissionless, ungoverned crypto experiments in H1 2026.
$11.2B shifts crypto
In the first six months of 2026, the crypto industry raised $11.2 billion, and CoinDesk says “Not one dollar of it went to the permissionless, ungoverned experiments” that digital assets were supposed to build on. CoinDesk reports that NeosLegal tracked every disclosed crypto funding round between January and June 2026, finding 377 financing rounds, with the top three sectors by capital raised being payments and stablecoins at $3.7 billion, prediction markets at $2 billion, and crypto exchanges and trading platforms at $1.7 billion.
CoinDesk also frames the shift through Dubai-based crypto lawyer Irina Heaver, who said, “The money has stopped chasing permissionless,” adding that it is “chasing regulated businesses now.” The same CoinDesk reporting highlights specific prediction-market deals, including Kalshi raising $1 billion in May and Polymarket raising $600 million from Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), which owns the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE).
Licensing vs users
CoinDesk says licensing has become central to how firms value crypto businesses, quoting Sigma Capital managing partner Vineet Budki: “Licensing has moved from a footnote to a line item in how we value a business.” Budki also described the timeline and cost of getting to market, saying a VARA license or a MiCA passport “takes anywhere between 18 to 24 months and millions of dollars before a project goes to market and processes a single transaction.”
But CoinDesk includes a counterpoint from Bitget CEO Gracy Chen, who said, “What funding data cannot show is where users are,” and added that on her own tokenized equities “95% of volume comes from individuals trading a few hundred dollars at a time, 24/7.” Chen’s argument is paired with CoinDesk’s note that Heaver’s methodology counted undisclosed rounds as zero, meaning the $11.2 billion total “understates actual activity,” while Budki said “One half-year is a snapshot.”
Regulators and ETFs
Beyond funding flows, Reuters reports that a national U.S. bank regulator on Friday conditionally approved a bank charter application linked to President Donald Trump and his family’s crypto venture, World Liberty Financial, via the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency’s conditional preliminary approval of World Liberty Trust Company’s application for a national trust charter. Reuters says the charter, if ultimately approved, would allow World Liberty to manage and hold assets on behalf of customers and settle payments faster, and it would allow it to directly issue its USD1 stablecoin and custody the U.S. dollar assets backing it, which are now handled by BitGo.
In parallel, 24/7 Wall St. frames crypto’s ETF landscape by saying Bitcoin (CRYPTO:BTC) ETFs hold nearly $52 billion in cumulative net inflows, while Ethereum (CRYPTO:ETH), XRP (CRYPTO:XRP), and Solana (CRYPTO:SOL) funds are combined below that figure. 24/7 Wall St. also provides a specific comparison point for 2026 flows, stating that Bitcoin ETFs posted $1.61 billion in monthly outflows in January and that XRP ETFs saw cumulative inflows rise from $1.18 billion in January to $1.51 billion today.