Global venture capital funding into cryptocurrency and blockchain reached an all-time high of $6.5 billion in the third quarter of 2021, surpassing the updated second-quarter total of $5.2 billion, according to a new report from market intelligence firm CB Insights and its subsidiary Blockdata.
For the quarter, there were a staggering 286 crypto deals recorded, down slightly from the 291 in the second quarter.
For the first nine months of the year, global VC funding hit $15 billion, up 384% from 2020?s full-year total of $3.1 billion.
Coinbase Ventures was the most active crypto investor in the third quarter by a significant margin with 24 deals, while CMT Digital and Polychain Capital tied for second with nine deals each.
Andreesen Horowitz, Digital Currency Group and Jump Capital tied for fourth with eight deals apiece. (Digital Currency Group is the parent company of CoinDesk.)
Read more: VCs Pumped $4B Into Crypto Firms in Q2: CB Insights
The U.S. continued to lead the world in VC funding into the crypto industry, investing a record high of $2.97 billion in the third quarter, up slightly from the second-quarter figure of $2.87 billion and the fifth consecutive quarter of increases overall. For Q3, the U.S. was followed by Asia with $1.4 billion invested, and Europe with $1.1 billion.
Globally, crypto exchange FTX?s $900 million funding round led all equity deals in the third quarter, followed by a $680 million raise from France-based non-fungible token (NFT) platform Sorare and a $431 million funding round by bitcoin miner Genesis Digital Assets, according to CB Insights.
Crypto exchanges were the leading industry segment in the quarter, raising nearly $2 billion in venture funding, up from just $84 million raised in the third quarter of 2020.