Monthly venture deal count in crypto fell to roughly 50 deals in May, a level last seen in the pre-2021 era when the industry was a fraction of its current size.
The compression is visible across nearly every category in the chart, with Infrastructure and Crypto Financial Services, historically the two most active buckets, both tracking near multi-year lows.
The decline reflects a combination of factors. Investor attention has broadly shifted toward AI, pulling capital and mindshare away from crypto ventures at a structural level. Simultaneously, the crypto space has struggled to produce the volume of compelling early-stage opportunities that characterized the 2021 and 2024 cycles.
Deal count tells one part of the story…
