Analyst: Historical data shows that venture capital favors AI over cryptocurrency

In a message from ChainCatcher, CoinDesk analyst Sam Reynolds stated that according to Pitchbook data, venture capital financing in the US crypto sector was about $861 million in Q1 2025, while the AI industry attracted nearly $20 billion. The flow of funds still significantly favors artificial intelligence. Large-scale financing in the AI field includes: Databricks at $15.3 billion and Anthropic at $2 billion, totaling 795 transactions. The largest funding in the crypto industry was Abu Dhabi's MGX investing $2 billion into exchanges; other financings include Mesh with $82 million, Bitwise with $70 million, and Sygnum Bank with $58 million.

Historical data shows that AI financing grew from $670 million in 2011 to $36 billion in 2020, growing much faster than the crypto sector overall. Only due to classification adjustments did crypto financing briefly surpass AI in 2021. Despite AI funds dominating, the crypto industry still obtains funds through unique mechanisms such as airdrops; for example, eleven major airdrops between 2020-2024 collectively generated seven billion dollars.

According to Statista data, all historical data shows that venture capital generally leans more towards Artificial Intelligence (AI) rather than cryptocurrency; funds attracted by artificial intelligence and machine learning continue to grow exponentially - increasing from USD$670milion in 2011 up until USD$36billion by year-end of 2020.