Tenstorrent's $1.5B Series E Drove $1.76B Crypto Funding Week

Crypto and crypto-linked companies announced $1.7626 billion across eight disclosed financings during Oct. 17–23, 2026, and a single deal accounted for 85% of it. Tenstorrent's $1.5 billion Series E, closed Oct. 19 at a $6.2 billion post-money valuation, dominated the week so completely that the rest of the market looks like a rounding error.

The roundup draws on deal inventory from Crypto Fundraising, DeFiLlama and DropsTab, checked against company announcements, investor disclosures and reporting. Amounts cover financings announced during the week, including some that closed earlier; valuations, cumulative funding and previously announced offerings stay out of the aggregate.

Why does an AI chip company top a crypto funding tally?

Because the money followed the overlap between crypto investment firms and AI infrastructure — not a blockchain-specific round. Trace Capital and Innovation X led Tenstorrent's $1.5 billion equity financing, which valued the AI computing company at $6.2 billion after the investment.

The participant list reads like a crossover between traditional asset management and crypto. ARK Invest, Fidelity Management & Research Company, Morgan Stanley, Sandisk and T. Rowe Price all took part, alongside Tether Investments. Tether confirmed its participation on Oct. 20 without disclosing its individual contribution or ownership stake.

Tenstorrent said proceeds will support large-scale deployment of Galaxy servers and development of the AI and CPU designs it licenses to chipmakers. The company operates from Santa Clara and Austin.

What does Whop's $200M tell you about crypto-commerce convergence?

Whop announced a $200 million Series D on Oct. 21, led by Sequoia and Shopify Ventures, at a $5.1 billion valuation. That's a jump of more than 3x from the $1.6 billion valuation in Tether's separate $200 million strategic investment back in February — only the new Series D counts toward this week's total.

The platform helps people and businesses sell digital products, software access, subscriptions and online services. Whop said the capital will fund international expansion plus research and development focused on payments and advertising. Its stablecoin payment capabilities are what tie the broader commerce business to crypto infrastructure.

Robinhood takes a bank stake, retail gets a proxy

Robinhood Ventures Fund I disclosed on Oct. 21 that it purchased $30 million of preferred stock in Erebor Bank, a transaction that actually closed Sep. 17. Erebor serves US businesses across technology, defense, robotics, AI and digital assets, and received its full national charter from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency along with FDIC insurance in February.

The bank's deposit base has grown beyond $7 billion, per the announcement — a figure separate from the preferred-stock deal and excluded from the funding total. The structure also gives retail investors exposure through RVI, a closed-end fund trading on the New York Stock Exchange. Worth noting: Erebor's preferred shares are investment securities, not insured bank deposits.

Mural, Tether's payments infrastructure bet

Mural raised $15 million in a Series A led by Tether, with North Island Ventures and existing investors participating, the company announced Oct. 20. The round brings cumulative funding to $28 million for the New York company, which connects accounts, payments, identity checks and compliance tools for financial platforms — combining local banking connections with blockchain payment networks.

Mural said it has processed $2.1 billion in payments for users across 128 countries since launching its API in 2025, working with customers including Deel and Opera. Proceeds will support hiring, licensing, compliance and market expansion. The company also builds controls for payments initiated by AI agents, including spending limits, approved counterparties and audit records.

The smaller checks: AI data, Bitcoin yield, Solana rails

Four sub-$15 million rounds filled out the week:

• Dataline raised a $10.6 million seed co-led by Lattice and Dispersion Capital, with Coinbase Ventures, Symbolic Capital, Anagram and Vlad Tenev participating. The company provides data for AI agents and plans a separate public token sale; unannounced sale proceeds are excluded.
• Nectar Group, developer of HoneyB, announced $5 million in seed financing from backers including Portal Ventures, Peer Ventures and Anchorage Digital Ventures. HoneyB plans to connect Bitcoin collateral with institutional income strategies, coordinating custody, credit and asset management.
• Hylo closed a $1 million strategic round led by Solana Ventures, with Colosseum participating. The Solana protocol develops leveraged tokens, stablecoin and yield infrastructure; its earlier $1.5 million seed is excluded from the count.
• X Pay announced $1 million from nine investors, including DCI, Credit Scend, Skyland Ventures and Zerra Ventures. The Netherlands-based company uses x402 for automated USDC payments and will spend proceeds on additional blockchains, a security review, an API marketplace and EU compliance preparations.

The undisclosed tail

Three more deals landed without price tags. Peso secured a Tether-led pre-seed investment announced Oct. 21; Tether said the Bolivian fintech will expand USDT payment infrastructure across Latin America. Lighthouse announced additional strategic funding for persistent AI-agent memory and decentralized storage — its $1.58 million figure represents cumulative funding, with the latest round's size and participants unidentified. Sonic Labs disclosed an OTC agreement involving roughly 13 million S tokens with an unnamed long-term partner, whose consideration stays out of the total.

The pattern for practitioners: Tether appeared in four transactions this week — Tenstorrent, Whop's earlier round, Mural and Peso — signaling that the largest stablecoin issuer is now operating as a full-spectrum venture investor across AI hardware, commerce rails and Latin American payments.