Recent developments in the People’s Republic have not just excited Bitcoin holders. A bullish wave of momentum has flooded back into the blockchain and crypto scene as venture capitalists return to take a second look at what’s hot in the fledgling industry.
Chinese Crypto Projects Get a Boost
The 2018 bear market was pretty brutal and as much as 90% of China’s venture capital fled the scene. This year has seen a solid recovery in the industry as total crypto market capitalization has gained almost 100% since the beginning of the year.
Recent bullish comments from president Xi Jinping had added to the momentum when he said that China needs to embrace the technology in order to innovate. Bitcoin surged 40% over night and related technology firms saw large increases in stock prices. Additionally Chinese cryptos such as NEO, VeChain, Tron and Bytom surged on the developments.
According to Chinese financial data tracker 01Caijing, Chinese blockchain and crypto startups raised $368 million via 71 funding deals, during the first six months of 2019. Reports indicate that funding is flowing back into the sector and this could be good news for home grown crypto projects.
NEO backed Neo Global Capital announced that they would be raising a second fund of about $50 million. The first fund, founded in late 2017, had returns of 7-8 times according to Neo Global Capital partner Tony Gu.
According to CB Insights mining hardware giant Bitmain is China’s most well-funded crypto company with Hyperchain coming in second. The firm develops a host of enterprise blockchain products and distributed ledger technologies. Last month it was reported that Hyperchain has plans to bring blockchain to China’s national power grid.
Other notable VC investments include the $500 million Fundamental Labs fund which backed industry giants such as Coinbase, Canaan Creative and Binance. Earlier this year the fund invested $44 million into Bitcoin mining that could increase the bitcoin network’s total hash rate. VC firm Parallel Ventures also invested around $15 million in Bitcoin mining hardware this year.
Managing partner of Fundamental Labs, Howard Yuan, estimated that there were thousands of VC funds following the 2018 crypto market peak but just a handful left today. The scene has matured somewhat though and the funds that do remain have evolved to find more sustainable investments.
Xin Jiang, investment manager at one of China’s largest firms, Fenbushi Capital, told Coindesk;
“Before the market crash, investors didn’t evaluate projects carefully because token prices kept going up. Now investors need to truly find value through more vigorous research and due diligence.”
The passing of new cryptography regulations will also add to the bullish sentiment in China as the country strives to remain ahead of its competitors. Its home grown blockchain projects are likely to reap the rewards from this new wave of investment and positive sentiment from the government.
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