It hasn’t been a good year for blockchain-based startup activity. In addition to a correction in asset prices during a general venture capital slowdown, web3-focused tech startups have also faced a series of intra-industrial crises that have sometimes dominated the headlines.
I’m thinking of the Terra/Luna mess. Just like the collapse of Three Arrows Capital. Not to mention the rapid fall of FTX and related entities.
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Amidst all of the above, many people building or investing in blockchain-based assets and protocols have their chins up. Evidence of that abounds – startups are still being founded and scaled in the web3 space and venture investors are still writing checks. Business as usual, right?
Perhaps.
It’s worth recalling that in 2022 the rate at which venture capital dollars were disbursed to web3-focused companies – a broad term; I try not to weigh on the crypto vs bitcoin argument — has fallen this year. Crunchbase data researched by my alma mater Crunchbase News recently noted, for example, that after peaking in the fourth quarter of 2021, capital raised by companies involved in cryptocurrency or blockchains declined in each subsequent quarter through the third quarter of 2022.
