October data showed a continued deceleration in the pace of crypto venture capital investment to under $1 billion a month, JPMorgan said in a research report last Thursday.
The downtrend began last May following the Terra collapse, said the report authors led by Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou, and the weak October numbers suggest more than just a seasonal summer slowdown.
The current level of venture capital investment of $500 million to $1 billion per month gives an annual rate of almost $10 billion, which is less than one-third of last year’s pace, they wrote.
Panigirtzoglou called it a worrying development as it shows an unwillingness by venture capital funds to deploy capital in the digital assets sector. He believes it increases the likelihood that the current weakness in cryptocurrency markets may be here for some time.
He also said other metrics such as sluggish bitcoin (BTC) and ether (ETH) exchange-traded-fund flows point to persistent weakness.
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