Kalshi's $1 Billion Series G Leads $1.24 Billion Crypto Funding Week

By Olivia Hart

Kalshi raised $1 billion at a $40 billion post-money valuation, anchoring a week in which crypto and crypto-linked companies announced at least $1.24 billion across 10 disclosed financings between Oct. 24 and 30. Ibis unveiled a separate $250 million institutional lending facility on top of that tally. The count includes debt and secondary share sales alongside startup equity, so the headline number is not a clean measure of venture risk-taking.

Crypto Fundraising and CryptoRank provided the starting deal lists, checked against company announcements, and reported on individual transactions.

What does Kalshi plan to do with $1 billion?

Kalshi announced its Series G on Oct. 29, with Wellington Management and Sequoia co-leading. Baillie Gifford, Andreessen Horowitz, Coatue, CapitalG and Morgan Stanley Investment Management also participated.

The $40 billion post-money valuation follows earlier fundraising discussions that crypto.news reported in September.

The company said proceeds would support institutional sales, distribution, product development and international expansion, particularly in Latin America and Europe. Planned products include indices, single-stock perpetual futures and compute markets.

Kalshi reported more than 30 million accounts and annualized trading volume exceeding $1 trillion across its exchange. Those are company-reported figures with no independent verification, and the new capital is intended to fund expansion well beyond prediction markets. In plain terms: Kalshi is now betting a $40 billion valuation on becoming a broad trading venue, not just an events exchange.

Why did HIVE borrow $129 million?

HIVE Digital Technologies said on Oct. 27 that its BUZZ Alpha Cloud subsidiary entered into an approximately $129 million loan agreement with an institutional lender. The three-year facility carries a fixed annual interest rate of 9% — a concrete cost of capital worth noting against the contract revenue meant to repay it.

The loan will finance Nvidia GPU systems and related infrastructure for a Canadian deployment supporting a previously announced Cohere contract. It is secured against the equipment and related assets, with a limited-recourse guarantee from BUZZ HPC. HIVE said no common shares would be issued and repayment was intended to come from contract revenue.

The structure spares shareholders dilution, but it ties repayment to a single customer relationship. If the Cohere contract underperforms, the lender — not HIVE's equity holders — carries most of the exposure.

What is PhotonPay building with $40 million?

PhotonPay closed a $40 million Series C led by Blockchain Capital, with SBI Group joining existing investors IDG Capital, GL Ventures and Lightspeed Faction.

The Hong Kong company plans to expand wallets supporting multiple assets, global card issuance and local clearing infrastructure. Its platform connects stablecoin liquidity with banking and payment networks used for corporate spending and settlement.

PhotonPay reported $65 billion in annualized transaction volume as of August and more than 200,000 business customers. That works out to roughly $325,000 in yearly volume per business customer on average — a scale claim investors evidently accepted, though the company disclosed no revenue figures.

Which mid-sized rounds went to AI computing?

• Hyperbolic announced a $30 million Series A1 led by Walden Catalyst on Oct. 27. Dell Technologies Capital, General Catalyst and Vista Equity Partners participated. Proceeds will support its Forge software, cloud coordination services and a planned marketplace for GPU capacity.
• Luxor disclosed a $16 million strategic round led by CMT Digital, with Canaan, MicroBT, Halo and Steelhead participating. The transaction combines new investment and secondary share sales. Luxor plans to expand AI hardware, cloud services and compute derivatives.

Both rounds sit above $15 million, and both target compute rather than tokens. The pattern echoes HIVE's GPU financing: capital is chasing processing capacity, not protocol speculation.

What landed under $10 million?

• Predicate raised an $8 million Series A led by Blockchain Capital, according to CryptoRank. Its announcement named Paxos as a new strategic investor and put cumulative funding at $15 million. The company embeds compliance screening into digital assets.
• Cancore announced $7.2 million in seed funding, backed by Paper Ventures, dao5, ArkStream Capital and others, to expand connections between Canton assets and public-chain liquidity.
• Spicenet secured a $5 million Series A led by dao5, with Babylon and Astrarizon participating. Funding will support its brokerage products, token launch and network liquidity.
• Mochatrade's latest seed financing amounted to $4.87 million, separating its previously announced $690,000 pre-seed from $5.56 million in cumulative funding. The Block reported that CoinFund led, with Coinbase Ventures participating.
• Birch Hill announced a $4 million seed round led by Multicoin Capital, with ParaFi, Castle Island Ventures and Nascent participating. It is developing infrastructure to bring U.S. credit onto public blockchains.

Compliance, tokenized credit, cross-chain trading and brokerage infrastructure absorbed most of the sub-$10 million capital. These are picks-and-shovels bets: unglamorous, but the kind that survive weak token markets.

What stayed undisclosed?

Four transactions carried no price tags, and they include some of the week's most strategically interesting names:

• Ibis launched with $250 million in FalconX credit capacity and an undisclosed pre-seed round involving FalconX, Anchorage Digital and Innovating Capital.
• IOSG Ventures invested an undisclosed amount in payments infrastructure provider Fun, according to KuCoin's Oct. 26 report.
• ICE took an undisclosed strategic stake in Trade[XYZ] alongside plans for regulated U.S. perpetual markets, subject to regulatory approvals.
• Stellar Development Foundation invested an undisclosed amount in Marketnode to expand institutional access to tokenized financial products across Asia-Pacific.

ICE's move is the one to watch: a major exchange operator buying into regulated U.S. perpetuals signals how traditional finance intends to enter crypto derivatives — if regulators allow it.

Taken together, the week's money flowed toward three destinations: a scaled trading venue, GPU infrastructure with contracted revenue, and stablecoin payment rails. The undisclosed ICE and Ibis deals suggest the next phase of institutional entry is already being assembled quietly.