Crypto VC funding climbed to nearly a quarter of a billion dollars in the first week of February, underscoring that institutional and venture appetite for digital assets remains alive despite a volatile macro backdrop. Between February 1 and 7, 2026, investors deployed roughly 251.9 million dollars across 12 crypto and blockchain projects, with Anchorage Digital and TRM Labs capturing the lion’s share of fresh capital.
Anchorage Digital tops the charts with $100 million raise
Anchorage Digital emerged as the week’s largest deal, closing a 100 million dollar strategic round. The company, which holds a federal charter as a digital asset bank in the United States, continues to position itself as core infrastructure for institutions entering the crypto space.
A “strategic” round, rather than a traditional venture stage label, signals that the investors involved are not only providing capital but also partnerships, distribution channels, and regulatory support. For Anchorage, this is crucial: its business model revolves around regulated custody, trading, and financing services for banks, asset managers, and large corporates exploring tokenized assets and crypto exposure.
The new funding is expected to accelerate the build‑out of compliance‑heavy services such as qualified custody, staking, and tokenization rails, as well as deeper integration with traditional financial systems. In practical terms, that means more resources for beefing up security, scaling institutional onboarding, and meeting tightening regulatory standards around digital asset safekeeping.
Anchorage’s round is also a barometer for where venture money is flowing in today’s market: less into speculative tokens and more toward infrastructure that helps large, regulated players interact safely with blockchain‑based assets.
TRM Labs secures $70 million at a $1 billion valuation
The second‑largest deal of the week went to TRM Labs, which raised 70 million dollars in a Series C round, valuing the company at approximately 1 billion dollars. TRM operates at the intersection of blockchain analytics, financial crime prevention, and national security.
According to the company, the new capital will power its core blockchain intelligence platform and substantially expand its investment in artificial intelligence. The goal: to detect, disrupt, and ultimately deter criminal activity ranging from sanctions evasion and terrorist financing to ransomware and sophisticated money‑laundering schemes that ply digital rails.
TRM’s tools are already widely used by regulators, law enforcement agencies, and compliance teams at exchanges and financial institutions. With AI‑enhanced analytics, TRM aims to move from reactive investigations to predictive threat detection, mapping illicit networks before they can move funds or cash out.
The billion‑dollar valuation places TRM among the leading “regtech” and “crime‑tech” players in the crypto ecosystem. It also reinforces a critical narrative for the industry: that serious capital is backing the sophistication and transparency regulators demand, rather than just the speculative upside that drew early retail interest.
Betting platform BLUFF raises $21 million to reinvent online wagering
In the consumer‑facing corner of crypto, BLUFF raised 21 million dollars in a round led by the venture firm 1kx. The startup’s pitch is straightforward but ambitious: build a next‑generation betting platform that takes full advantage of the internet and on‑chain infrastructure.
BLUFF’s focus is on higher throughput, global reach, and more flexible market structures than traditional sports betting or online casinos typically offer. By leveraging smart contracts and transparent settlement on public blockchains, the platform aims to deliver instant payouts, provably fair odds, and composability with other decentralized finance (DeFi) primitives.
This raise highlights a persistent thesis among crypto VCs: that on‑chain platforms can disrupt incumbent industries where trust, settlement speed, and opaque pricing have long been friction points. Online betting, with its need for real‑time risk management and clear audit trails, fits that thesis particularly well.
Relay raises $17 million to speed up cross‑chain settlement
Cross‑chain interoperability also captured investor attention. Relay (associated with the Reservoir ecosystem) announced a 17 million dollar Series B round, co‑led by Archetype and Union Square Ventures. At the center of its roadmap is the Relay Chain, a piece of infrastructure designed for near‑instant settlement of assets across different blockchains.
The challenge Relay is tackling is straightforward but technically complex: value is fragmented across multiple chains, each with its own standards, security assumptions, and user base. Moving assets between them is often slow, expensive, and risky, relying on centralized bridges or brittle token wrappers.
Relay’s approach is to build purpose‑built infrastructure that treats cross‑chain transfers as a first‑class operation rather than an afterthought. “Any asset, any chain, instantly” is the ambition. If successful, such platforms can become critical plumbing for both DeFi protocols and institutions that wish to route liquidity, collateral, or payments across a multi‑chain environment without introducing new systemic risks.
Smaller rounds: early‑stage experimentation under $5 million
Beyond headline‑grabbing raises, several projects closed funding rounds under 5 million dollars, reflecting early‑stage experimentation across the crypto stack. While individual deal sizes were modest, they collectively highlight the breadth of ongoing innovation.
Smaller raises often cluster around areas such as developer tooling, crypto infrastructure for emerging markets, niche DeFi protocols, NFT tooling, and data providers. These companies typically operate in discovery mode—testing product‑market fit and searching for user traction in highly specialized segments.
For venture firms, these sub‑5‑million‑dollar rounds offer asymmetric upside: relatively small checks into teams experimenting with novel token models, compliance‑friendly DeFi structures, or niche verticals like decentralized identity or on‑chain reputation. Even as late‑stage valuations normalize, the early‑stage pipeline continues to be replenished.
How this week’s numbers compare in context
A 251.9 million dollar week spread across 12 projects does not set an all‑time record, but it is meaningful in the current market context. The amount and the concentration of capital hint at a maturing cycle where investors prioritize infrastructure, compliance tools, and real‑world use cases.
Compared with the frothiest periods of previous cycles—when hundreds of millions could flow into dozens of token projects in a single day—today’s funding environment is more selective. Mega‑rounds are fewer, but the presence of a 100 million dollar strategic round and a 70 million dollar Series C indicates that seasoned investors still believe in the long‑term utility of blockchain technology.
The dispersion across verticals—banking infrastructure (Anchorage), compliance and intelligence (TRM), consumer betting (BLUFF), and cross‑chain infrastructure (Relay)—also shows that capital is not locked into a single narrative such as DeFi, NFTs, or Layer‑1 chains. Instead, it is backing a diverse set of building blocks for a broader digital asset economy.
Why infrastructure and compliance are winning attention
The prominence of Anchorage Digital and TRM Labs in this week’s funding tally underscores a clear shift: the center of gravity in crypto venture investing is tilting toward services that make digital assets safer, more regulated, and easier to integrate with existing financial systems.
Anchorage represents the regulated front door for institutions that need secure, compliant custody and banking services for digital assets. TRM, in turn, offers the forensic visibility that regulators and compliance departments require to sign off on those activities. Together, they illustrate a broader pattern: serious capital is flowing into the tools that enable long‑term institutional adoption, not just short‑term trading opportunities.
This alignment with regulatory and security priorities matters. For years, critics have argued that crypto cannot scale globally without robust frameworks to combat money laundering, sanctions violations, and consumer harm. By funding companies that directly tackle these challenges, VCs are effectively placing a bet that crypto’s future will be built inside, not outside, the regulatory perimeter.
The strategic logic behind large “defensive” rounds
The size and stage of Anchorage’s and TRM’s rounds also have a strategic element. In a more cautious macro environment, sizeable capital cushions can be a defensive moat. They allow companies to out‑invest competitors in product, security, and compliance, as well as withstand regulatory shocks or downturns in token prices.
Strategic investors often bring more than money. They can become anchor clients, distribution partners, or advocates in policy discussions. In regulated sectors such as digital asset banking and financial intelligence, those relationships can be at least as valuable as the cash itself.
By securing large rounds now, both Anchorage and TRM are effectively signaling to the market that they intend to be long‑term infrastructure providers, not just high‑growth startups. That in turn can reassure institutions that worry about vendor risk when choosing critical partners in a still‑young industry.
What this means for founders raising in 2026
For crypto founders, the pattern of this week’s funding carries a few clear lessons:
– Regulation‑aware models have an edge. Projects that acknowledge and integrate legal, compliance, and security requirements into their design are more likely to attract top‑tier capital than those that hope to operate in gray areas.
– Infrastructure still sells. Even after several market cycles, tools that make blockchains more usable—custody, compliance, cross‑chain liquidity, developer infrastructure—remain compelling investment themes.
– Clear narratives matter. Each of the week’s notable raises can be summed up in a simple, defensible story: a regulated bank for digital assets, a crime‑fighting intelligence platform, a faster betting venue, a chain for instant cross‑chain settlement. In a crowded field, clarity of purpose is becoming a differentiator.
– Capital is selective, not absent. The existence of a 252 million dollar funding week shows that money is available, but it flows to teams with strong execution, credible roadmaps, and traction in well‑defined markets.
Outlook: from speculative cycles to durable infrastructure
The week of February 1–7, 2026 serves as a snapshot of where the crypto venture market is heading. The speculative booms of prior years have given way to a more sober environment in which infrastructure, compliance, and real‑world use cases dominate investor interest.
Anchorage Digital’s 100 million dollar strategic raise and TRM Labs’ 70 million dollar Series C at a 1 billion dollar valuation underscore that core financial plumbing for digital assets is still being built out—and that large investors are willing to fund that build‑out. Deals like BLUFF and Relay highlight that there is still room for bold consumer and protocol‑level bets, especially where crypto offers clear advantages over traditional systems.
As regulation evolves and institutional participation deepens, weeks like this—anchored by fewer, larger, and more thematically coherent rounds—are likely to become the norm. Rather than signaling the end of crypto innovation, this shift suggests that the industry is gradually moving from experimental hype cycles toward more durable, system‑level infrastructure for the next era of digital finance.