Circle, Telegram, and Donald Trump.
Those three names are linked to 22% of the $10.3 billion crypto projects raised in the first half of 2025, which is $700 million more than the industry did during the entirety of 2024, according to DefiLlama data.
Venture capital investors expect money raised by the industry to jump as high as $25 million this year.
Here are the three biggest raises between January and June.
Circle, $1.1 billion
Circle and some of its shareholders raised $1.1 billion when the stablecoin issuer went public on the New York Stock Exchange in June. Its share price has surged more than 500% since its public debut.
The success of Circle’s IPO has fuelled the buzz around stablecoins. DefiLlama data shows that the stablecoin market has skyrocketed to $253 billion. Bernstein expects it to grow by almost 1,500% over the next decade to be worth an astonishing $4 trillion.
That growth owes a lot to the pro-crypto bent of the Trump administration, which has put Washington on the cusp of passing landmark stablecoin legislation as soon as this summer.
The Open Network Foundation, $400 million
Investors just can’t seem to get enough of The Open Network Foundation, or the TON Foundation.
Hot on the heels of ending 2024 with a $20 million cash injection, the Telegram-linked blockchain developer capped off March by bagging another $400 million. It did so through the sale of its Toncoin cryptocurrency to several investors.
TON Foundation said investors backing the raise included Sequoia Capital, Ribbit, Benchmark, Kingsway, Vy Capital, Draper Associates, and Libertus Capital, CoinFund, Hypersphere, SkyBridge, and Karatage.
Last August, French law enforcement officials arrested Telegram CEO Pavel Durov and placed him under formal investigation on six preliminary charges.
They include allegations that Telegram facilitated illegal activities such as drug trafficking, money laundering, and the distribution of child abuse material.
French prosecutors claim that Telegram refused to cooperate with authorities in curbing these activities. Durov has denied the accusations.
World Liberty Financial raised $300 million in a token sale completed on January 20, the day Donald Trump was sworn in as president.
The project would then go on to raise an additional $385 million across four more sales, according to DefiLlama. In March, it launched a dollar-pegged stablecoin named USD1.
It isn’t owned by President Donald Trump or his family, but Trump and his three sons, Eric, Donald Jr, and Barron, take an active role in promoting and developing the venture and are set to receive a share of its profits.
World Liberty Financial is part of a sprawling crypto empire linked to the president, which also includes memecoins, NFTs, and Bitcoin mining.
The agency has suspended or dropped numerous enforcement actions against the likes of Coinbase, Ripple, and Binance.
The White House refuted the allegations.
As an aside, the Trump family also deserves mention in the fourth biggest raise between January and June.
Hut 8, a Bitcoin mining firm, disclosed that it had raised $220 million to purchase Bitcoin and mining infrastructure.
Hut 8 is the majority owner of American Bitcoin, a mining company co-founded by Eric Trump, Decrypt reported.
You’re reading the latest instalment of The Weekly Raise, our column covering fundraising deals across the crypto and DeFi spaces, powered by DefiLlama.
