Crypto.com's venture capital arm is questioning some of the sector's inflated valuations.
CEO says Chris MarszalekI talked about this topic. interview Bloomberg News published Wednesday (April 17).
As the report notes, Marszalek made this observation: Bringing together the cryptocurrency sector A growing number of multibillion-dollar funding rounds for early-stage crypto startups has begun. Bloomberg compares this to the “investment frenzy” associated with the coronavirus-era token bull market, with very mixed results.
“We want economic benefits,” Marszalek told the press. “At this point, the valuations being thrown around by the project team are very generous.”
According to Bloomberg, Crypto.com Capital is winding down its investment activities starting in 2022, a year that began with the company setting aside $500 million to invest in crypto startups. Dealroom analysts have recorded just four investments in Crypto.com since the beginning of last year based on publicly available information, compared to 35 in the two years before that.
Marszalek said the fund “wants to scale back a little bit” despite growing crypto venture activity. “We are trying to be reasonable about this,” he added.
The unit has made about 70 investments in nine-figure sums, Marszalek said, declining to provide exact numbers to Bloomberg.
In an interview with Marszalek earlier this week, the CEO told Bloomberg that Crypto.com Process of hiring 1,400 employeesit's been a little over a year since the company announced that; One-fifth of employees retire.
The company has added 700 employees since November and plans to add another 500 in its customer service division and 200 in its corporate division, Marszalek said.The report states: Crypto.com is not the only company expanding headcount in the cryptocurrency sector, with Coinbase Global, Kraken, Binance, and Gemini also adding positions recently.
Meanwhile, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse predicted earlier this month that the market capitalization of cryptocurrencies would rise in 2024. Breaking through the $5 trillion mark.
In an interview with CNBC, Garlinghouse said the crypto market will double in value this year due to factors such as the approval of the first spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) in the US and the upcoming Bitcoin “halving”. He said he expected that.
“I've been in this industry for a long time and I've seen these trends come and go,” Garlinghouse said. “I'm very optimistic. I think macro trends, big picture things like ETFs are moving real institutional money for the first time.”
“We see that driving up demand, but at the same time demand is increasing, supply is decreasing,” he added. “You don't need an economics major to explain what happens when supply contracts and demand increases.”
