Crypto projects captured $2.67 billion in investments last month and is equivalent to 85% of money raised during the entire second quarter.

DefiLlama data shows that the funding amount in July is 6% larger than June, when crypto startups surpassed $2.5 billion by a small margin.

Additionally, July was the second-largest month in funding, bested only by March’s $3.5 billion. Pump.fun’s pre-sales contributed heavily to July’s numbers, as it attracted nearly $1 billion before its token generation event.

Treasuries shine

DefiLlama tracked investments into crypto-related companies under the category “Investments,” which received $512 million in funding. 

BitMine raised $250 million to add Ethereum to its treasury, representing the largest amount in the “investments” category. Meanwhile, Upexi’s $200 million funding was the second-largest capital raise in the category, which was destined to add Solana to its holdings.

Together, both companies represented 88% of all funding in the “investments” category in July.

“Stablecoin infrastructure” also received significant attention from investors, with $352.5 million directed to projects in the segement.

Hong Kong-based OSL Group dominated the funding, gathering $300 million to boost its global expansion.

RD Technologies is another project from Hong Kong, which received $40 million to create regulated systems for stablecoins ranging from issuance to distribution. 

DeFi strong even without Pump.fun

Despite Pump.fun adding a considerable amount to the “DeFi” category, projects developing products for the decentralized finance ecosystem raised $107 million. The amount is relatively substantial compared to other sectors.

Kuru received $11.6 million to develop a central limit order book (CLOB) based on the Monad infrastructure. At the same time, GAIB captured $10 million to create a decentralized economic layer to tokenize GPUs and their revenue stream.

Falcon Finance also received a two-digit funding, as World Liberty Financial backed the project with $10 million to build an overcolateralized stablecoin.

The last of the sectors that got at least $100 million in funding is “infrastructure.” Bitzero raised $25 million in a Series B funding round to support its mining operations.

Furthermore, xTAO received $22.8 million to continue its work of supporting and scaling the Bittensor ecosystem.

Soluna secured a two-digit investment, capturing $20 million to enhance operations, including Bitcoin mining with green energy.

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Ethereum (ETH) registered significant improvements in the second quarter, including increased inflows of exchange-traded funds (ETFs), layer-2 activity, and liquidity, which enhance the prospects for the third quarter.

According to the “Charting Crypto Q3 2025” report by Coinbase and Glassnode, US-traded spot Ethereum ETFs captured $1.7 billion in net inflows last quarter, overturning the prior period’s outflows.

Institutional flows flip positive

Furthermore, layer‑2 throughput climbed 7%, while average user fees dropped 39%. This was followed by an 8% increase in liquid supply, while long‑dormant balances shrank 6%.

As a result of the improvements seen last quarter, the share of ETH held at a profit increased from under 40% to nearly 90%. Additionally, the total value locked on Ethereum reached $ 63.2 billion.

The improvements are also registered in the derivatives market, where daily perpetual futures turnover averaged $51.4 billion, up 56% quarter‑over‑quarter.

Aggregate inflows erased a first‑quarter $200 million leak and restored momentum for managers positioning ETH as the market’s second large‑cap crypto. 

Futures open interest totaled $14.5 billion on June 30 despite a 6.9% quarterly pullback, highlighting deeper liquidity across regulated venues. 

Meanwhile, options open interest stood at $ 5.3 billion, with derivatives desks also logging an 11% uptick in term‑futures volume, signaling growing hedging appetite.

Network activity and economics

Developers and users benefited from a 39% decline in base layer fees as rollups absorbed more transactions, sharpening the economics of on‑chain application deployment. 

At the same time, Ethereum’s inflation rate remained modest, at approximately 0.75% annualized. This cushioned long-term supply pressure. 

Staked ETH continued to climb, and the report plotted both total staked value and the associated annual yield among its core fundamentals tables.

On-chain analytics show that holders used the second-quarter price recovery to reposition. Liquid coins, defined as those moved within 90 days, rose 8%, whereas coins untouched for more than a year fell 6%.

This indicated controlled profit‑taking rather than wholesale distribution. ETH’s Net Unrealized Profit/Loss flipped from capitulation to optimism between the first and second quarters, aligning with market‑cycle models that track investor sentiment shifts. 

The pool of coins sitting below cost plummeted from more than 40 million to fewer than 10 million over the same period.

DeFi collateral base and market share

Ethereum’s $63 billion total value locked (TVL) in the DeFi ecosystem is spread across lending, decentralized exchanges, and yield farming protocols. 

Ether also expanded its slice of total crypto market capitalization alongside Bitcoin and Solana as investors rotated toward perceived blue‑chip assets.

Perpetual swap funding rates, tracked alongside Bitcoin and Solana, remained neutral to positive through late June, suggesting balanced speculative positioning rather than froth.

However, the report cautioned that sustained ETF inflows and favorable fee conditions must persist to maintain the second-quarter constructive backdrop. 

Nevertheless, it noted that Ethereum now enters the third quarter with stronger institutional sponsorship, lower transaction costs, and a healthier on-chain profit profile.

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