Regulated Crypto Firms Absorb Nearly All 2026 Funding, New Data Shows

Crypto startups raised a combined 11.2 billion dollars during the first half of 2026, but according to new research, none of that disclosed funding went toward permissionless or ungoverned projects. Dubai-based crypto lawyer Irina Heaver, founder of NeosLegal, led the effort to track every disclosed funding round between January and June, identifying 377 total financing rounds during that period.

“There is an irony at the heart of crypto, and it took an 11.2 billion dollar dataset to make it obvious,” Heaver said, noting that the industry was originally built on the idea of markets that answer to no gatekeeper. The top three sectors by capital raised were payments and stablecoins at 3.7 billion dollars, prediction markets at 2 billion dollars, and crypto exchanges and trading platforms at 1.7 billion dollars, all of which require regulatory approval to operate.

Prediction Markets Lead the Shift

Prediction markets stood out as a major driver of this trend, pulling in funding every single month of the first half of the year across 34 separate rounds. Kalshi raised 1 billion dollars in May with backing from Sequoia Capital, Morgan Stanley, Ark Invest, and Andreessen Horowitz. Polymarket raised 600 million dollars from Intercontinental Exchange, the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange.

Major financial institutions also took part in these deals. BlackRock, Apollo, HSBC, BNP Paribas, Citadel, Goldman Sachs, and Nasdaq all invested in regulated crypto companies during the period. Mastercard acquired stablecoin payments firm BVNK outright for 1.8 billion dollars, while Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth fund ADIA joined a 355 million dollar funding round for institutional blockchain firm Canton Network.

A Different Perspective From Retail Markets

Not everyone agrees the funding data tells the complete story. Gracy Chen, CEO of Bitget, pointed out that institutional capital and everyday retail users appear to be moving in different directions. She noted that a large share of trading volume on tokenized equities comes from individual users making small trades continuously, often outside the same platforms that attracted major institutional funding.