Venture investment in digital assets has recovered from the trough, but the composition of that capital looks different from previous cycles.
Infrastructure — custody, compliance tooling, payments rails and developer platforms — has absorbed the majority of dollars deployed this year, while consumer applications have struggled to raise beyond seed.
Partners at three funds described the same reasoning: infrastructure companies sell to buyers with budgets, while consumer products depend on a retail cycle nobody wants to underwrite.
The concentration has consequences for valuations. A handful of late-stage rounds have priced aggressively, and secondaries suggest a wider dispersion of views than headline marks imply.
