Wall Street Sends $11.2 Billion Into Regulated Crypto

Capital is flowing mostly into payments, stablecoins, and licensed exchanges. BlackRock, HSBC, and Mastercard are already part of that shift toward MiCA- and compliance-ready models.

Key Takeaways

• In the first six months of 2026, the crypto sector raised $11.2 billion, but no capital went to permissionless experiments.
• Most of the money flowed to regulated companies in payments, stablecoins, prediction markets, and crypto exchanges.
• According to market participants, licenses and oversight are becoming more important for valuation and access to institutional capital.

In the first six months of 2026, the crypto sector raised $11.2 billion (€9.7 billion), but according to newly counted funding data, not a single dollar went to the permissionless experiments that crypto once revolved around. Instead, the biggest money flows went to companies with licenses, such as payment services, stablecoins, prediction markets, and crypto exchanges.

Capital Chooses Licenses

Dubai-based crypto lawyer Irina Heaver, founder of NeosLegal, said her team tracked all publicly disclosed funding rounds between January and June 2026. In total, she counted 377 rounds. The three biggest sectors by capital raised were payments and stablecoins with $3.7 billion (€3.2 billion), prediction markets with $2 billion (€1.7 billion), and crypto exchanges and trading platforms with $1.7 billion (€1.5 billion).

According to Heaver, that shows the market is shifting from unregulated experiments to companies that can operate under supervision. Other market players are seeing that move too. Big names like BlackRock, Apollo, HSBC, BNP Paribas, Citadel, Goldman Sachs, and Nasdaq invested in regulated crypto companies, while Mastercard paid $1.8 billion (€1.6 billion) for stablecoin payments company BVNK.

Prediction Markets Attract Money

Prediction markets were a standout draw in the first half of the year. Kalshi raised $1 billion (€0.9 billion) in May in a round that included Sequoia Capital, Morgan Stanley, Ark Invest, and Andreessen Horowitz. Polymarket received $600 million (€519 million) from Intercontinental Exchange, the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange. Together, prediction markets attracted capital in each of the first six months of 2026, adding up to 34 rounds.

That preference for regulated models fits into a broader professionalization of the crypto market. For European readers, that matters because licenses, MiCA, and other local frameworks are increasingly deciding which projects get access to big capital. In that sense, it is not just about funding, but also about which business models institutional investors still want to finance at all.

The sector is also under growing pressure from regulators. In the US, prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket have already faced legal and compliance concerns more often this year, which further increases the value of a strong licensing position.

Licenses Become a Valuation Factor

Vineet Budki, managing partner at Sigma Capital, said licenses are now a standard part of a company’s valuation. He pointed out that code can be copied over a weekend, while a VARA license or MiCA passport can take 18 to 24 months and cost millions of dollars before a project goes live.

Budki called that not a pure regulation trade, but a revenue trade. Gracy Chen, CEO of Bitget, added a nuance: institutional capital is chasing licenses, but in her view that does not tell the whole story about where users are. She pointed to tokenized equities on her platform, where 95% of volume, according to her, comes from retail traders with small tickets, 24/7 and mostly outside the venues that raised the money.

Finally, Heaver stressed that her dataset only includes publicly disclosed rounds, which means the total is probably lower than the real activity. According to her, the core message is clear: the market is no longer just buying a product, but more and more also the regulated status around it.