| Despite the rising price of Bitcoin and hints of a returning bull market for digital assets, some of the biggest names in crypto investing have curbed their deal-making during a venture-capital drought.
Crypto corporate venture-capital arms, which are part of major exchanges and trading firms, are being outpaced by other investors when it comes to backing blockchain startups. HashKey Capital, the venture arm of HashKey Exchange, and Jump Crypto, a division of Jump Trading Group, failed to crack the top 10 crypto VC deal-makers last year after previously making the list in 2022, according to new data from research firm PitchBook. Binance Labs, the investment wing of Binance, the world's biggest crypto exchange, hasn't landed among top investors since 2020. Only Coinbase Ventures, which belongs to Coinbase Global Inc., the biggest US crypto exchange, made the list in 2023. Still, its deal count plummeted 75% from the previous year to just 34 funding rounds.  These venture arms helped underpin some of the biggest digital-asset startups, but the latest crypto winter pushed their parent companies to conserve cash, rein in deal-making and focus on their core business. Some of these companies faced their own unique challenges as well. Binance lost its chief executive officer, Changpeng "CZ" Zhao, in November after he pleaded guilty to an assortment of US charges. The company continues to grapple with a lawsuit from the US Securities and Exchange Commission. Jump, once one of the leading crypto market-makers, is shrinking away from the industry and parted ways with its Wormhole crypto project last year. Coinbase is fighting in court in its own SEC lawsuit, which alleges that the company is peddling unregistered securities. But even if corporate VCs are fading away from crypto, there's another major investor category still committed to the space. Crypto-native VCs, or firms like Shima Capital who specialize in digital-asset investments, continue to dominate in deal count. Andreessen Horowitz, which raised a record-breaking $4.5 billion crypto fund in 2022 and whose crypto lead Chris Dixon published a new blockchain book on Tuesday, was the only generalist firm ranked among the industry's top investors after making last year's list. Crypto-native firms likely have fund terms that require them to deploy their capital in the crypto space, meaning that more deals could be on the horizon as the market heats up. A resurgence in crypto-startup funding could also come from venture investors sitting on massive cash piles. Paradigm, Hivemind Capital, Haun Ventures and Electric Capital all raised crypto funds worth $1 billion or more during the bull market, but were not ranked among top deal-makers over the last four years, which brings up questions about their commitment to the industry. Could these investors fill in the gap left by corporate venture capitalists or are they softening on crypto as well? | 
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