How billions were invested in crypto infrastructure in 2022 and why it matters today

Analyzing more than 1,200 publicly available cryptocurrency seed and pre-seed rounds starting in 2022, Lattice Fund found that the early-stage cryptocurrency market caused investors to reorient toward the more stable and established infrastructure and centralized finance (CeFi) sectors. ).

This came after a period of exploring emerging sectors in 2021.

Infrastructure and CeFi

According to the latest report from venture capital firm Lattice Fund, this renewed focus resulted in nearly $2 billion and $450 million being invested in these sectors, representing a 3x and 2x increase from the previous year.

This shift revealed “strong investor confidence”: 80% of CeFi projects and 78% of infrastructure projects were successfully launched on mainnet, far outpacing sectors like Consumer Web3 and DeFi. .

As newer verticals such as nfts and the metaverse began to lose momentum, infrastructure projects, which primarily serve other crypto companies, remained a consistent bet for long-term growth. Eigenlayer, for example, launched a seed round in January 2022 and has successfully expanded its AVS commercialization strategy, attracting interest from middleware projects.

Overall, investors poured $5 billion into nearly 1,200 startups from the 2022 batch, reflecting a 2.5-fold increase from the previous year.

ethereum continued to solidify its position as the dominant layer one ecosystem in 2022, attracting $1.4 billion in investments and far outpacing rival networks like Solana, which raised nearly $350 million.

While the ethereum and Solana projects were similarly successful in raising follow-on funding, other ecosystems struggled. The Polkadot ecosystem, for example, saw a significant 40% drop in fundraising and no teams in the NEAR ecosystem managed to raise additional capital.

Meanwhile, Binance's ecosystem faced major attrition, with a third of its teams ceasing operations. Solana's failure rate doubled from 2021 to 26%.

Despite these challenges, bitcoin projects remained remarkably resilient, with 100% of teams still active after two years, highlighting their enduring stability amid a volatile market.

nfts and the metaverse lose momentum

Attracting users became increasingly difficult during the bear market as retail interest waned. Sectors that stood out during the 2022 wave, such as nfts, metaverse, and gaming, are struggling to maintain user engagement compared to two years ago.

The report also states that the sectors that dominate current narratives may not always align with the interests of long-term investors.

Despite 75 teams raising almost $280 million, no project in the metaverse managed to adapt to the product market and more than 21% of teams have ceased operations.

Meanwhile, sectors like DePIN and ai, which were barely on the radar in 2022, have become some of the hottest topics today.

<!– ai CONTENT END 1 –>