Gate Ventures Weekly Crypto Recap (August 18, 2025)

TL;DR

• Scott Bessent called for a 50bps interest rate cut in September, followed by a cumulative reduction of at least 150 to 175 bps.
• This week’s economic data includes Fed minutes, US Housing Market Index, building permits, housing starts and existing home sales.
• ETH broke through $4,700 last week, just one step away from its all-time high.
• Spot ETH ETFs saw inflows of over 400,000 ETH last week, maintaining strong momentum, suggesting ETH’s bullish trend may continue.
• OKB burned 279 million tokens, reducing total circulation to 21 million and igniting competition among exchange tokens.
• Sidekick, a Web3 video livestreaming platform, launched its token, but its target user base remains unclear.
• Galaxy Secures $1.4B Debt Facility to transform Bitcoin mining center into AI infrastructure hub.
• Pantera Capital invests $300M in DAT firms to grow crypto reserves.
• Circle posts 53% Q2 revenue growth to $658M, unveils Arc L1 with USDC as native gas.
• Most funded projects are in the infrastructure sector.

Macro Overview

Scott Bessent called for a 50bps interest rate cut in September, followed by a cumulative reduction of at least 150 to 175 bps.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has provided a clear signal regarding future Federal Reserve policy — calling for a 50 basis point rate cut starting in September, followed by a cumulative reduction of at least 150 to 175 basis points. He noted that if the significant downward revisions to nonfarm payrolls by the Bureau of Labor Statistics had been known before the last FOMC meeting, rate cuts could have started as early as June or July. This stance significantly exceeds current market expectations: the Fed’s current target range is 4.25% — 4.50%, and a 150 basis point cut would bring the midpoint down to 2.88%.

At the same time, Bessent recommended that the Bank of Japan should raise interest rates. He argued that the U.S. needs to cut rates quickly to alleviate the pressure of high real interest rates on credit, real estate, and regional banks, in order to prevent a hard landing. Meanwhile, Japan, amid rising wage growth and inflation expectations, would benefit from rate hikes to anchor inflation expectations and stabilize the yen. This policy divergence with US easing and Japan tightening is set to reshape global interest rate differentials, triggering capital flows, exchange rate volatility, and a repricing of asset values.

This week’s upcoming data includes July FOMC meeting minutes and the US housing market data. Last week the published data showed a moderate increase in US CPI with higher-than-expected PPI, suggesting that the US consumer remains resilient. Meanwhile the US consumer sentiment fell for the first time in 4 months as long-term inflation expectation rose. Such mixing data suggest a complicated path for the rate cuts, therefore influencing the market confidence on the Fed’s independence, which resulted in the drop of the dollar index.

DXY

The dollar index dropped last week to below $98, as the US PPI rose 3.3% which is the fastest annual pace since February 2025, and this leads to less chance of a jumbo rate cut.

US 10-Year Bond Yield

The US Treasury 10-Year Bond yield rate rose mildly last week to above 4.3%, while the latest auction rate was 4.25%. The market is pricing in the impact of CPI and PPI that didn’t meet the expectation.

Gold

Gold prices dropped from $3,400 to $3,300 lines last week, as Trump and Putin met in Alaska on the potential peace deal in Ukraine, and the US PPI remains resilient which leads to faded Fed rate cut expectations.

Crypto Markets Overview

1. Main Assets

BTC Price

ETH Price

SOL/ETH Ratio

Last week, the cryptocurrency market as a whole was on a downward trend. BTC was priced at 115,000, and ETH at 4,300, representing week-over-week declines of 5% and 1% respectively. ETH’s weekly high reached 4,800, just a step away from its all-time high of 4,891. Solana was priced at 182, down 2% week-over-week, with the SOL/ETH exchange rate dropping further to 0.042.

In terms of Spot ETFs, Spot ETH ETFs saw a net inflow of 404,700 ETH last week, maintaining a relatively high level of inflows. Yesterday, however, as ETFs pulled back, there was also a small outflow of around 13,000 ETH. Based on this, we believe the upward trend of ETFs has not yet ended, and we maintain a bullish outlook.

The market lacked a dominant narrative last week, but OKX carried out a large-scale burn of OKB tokens, while its long-developed ZK Layer2 solution, XLayer, officially launched. At present, the ecosystem is still relatively small, and the token is largely being driven by MEME coin-style rallies.

2. Total Market Cap

Crypto Total Marketcap

Crypto Total Marketcap Excluding BTC and ETH

As of this Monday, the total cryptocurrency market capitalization stood at $3.85 trillion, with the market cap excluding BTC and ETH at $1.03 trillion. Compared to last week, this represents a week-over-week decline of 3.9% and 0%, respectively.

3. Top 30 Crypto Assets Performance

Source: Coingecko and Gate Ventures, as of 18th August 2025

Last week, the overall market was in a correction phase, resulting in mixed performance among the top 30 tokens. The dominant theme of the week was likely tied to exchanges: OKX carried out a one-time burn of 279 million OKB tokens, worth $32 billion as of Monday. Following the burn, only 21 million OKB remain in circulation. At the current price of $115, the token’s fully diluted valuation (FDV) stands at $2.41 billion.

As OKB ignited competition among exchange tokens, market capital flowed into this sector. BNB, GT, and BGB all experienced varying degrees of volatility and price gains.

4. New Token Launched

Last week, the market was mainly in a correction phase, with few new token listings. Sidekick went live during the week; it is a Web3 video livestreaming platform. However, such consumer-facing applications lack a clearly defined target audience, as the crypto-native Web3 user base remains relatively small and is primarily driven by speculation. Sidekick is backed by YZi Labs and Mirana Ventures, with a current market capitalization of $23 million and a fully diluted valuation (FDV) of $200 million.

The Key Crypto Highlights

1. Galaxy Secures $1.4B Debt Facility to transform Bitcoin mining center into AI infrastructure hub

Galaxy Digital (GLXY) has secured a $1.4B debt facility to retrofit and expand its Helios bitcoin mining facility in West Texas, repositioning it as a major hub for AI and high-performance computing (HPC). The investment supports a 15-year lease agreement with CoreWeave (CRWV), under which Galaxy will deliver 800 MW of IT load to host CoreWeave’s AI and HPC operations. The financing was structured on a 36-month term, secured by assets tied to Helios’s first-phase buildout. Offered at 80% loan-to-cost, the package includes an additional $350M equity contribution from Galaxy. Deutsche Bank acted as initial lender, according to SEC filings.

The move reflects a broader shift among bitcoin miners toward AI-driven HPC services, leveraging existing datacenter capacity and access to NVIDIA GPUs. CoreWeave itself began as a crypto miner before pivoting to cloud-based GPU services in 2019, and raised $1.5 billion in its March IPO.

This is a key step in diversifying Galaxy’s business model beyond crypto into AI infrastructure. The firm estimates the CoreWeave agreement could generate over $1B in annual revenue at full utilization. A second expansion phase is planned, with capacity at Helios potentially reaching 3.5 GW.

2. Pantera Capital invests $300M in DAT firms to grow crypto reserves

Pantera Capital has disclosed that it has invested more than $300M into digital asset treasury (DAT) companies, a new class of public firms that hold large crypto reserves and aim to expand token ownership per share through yield strategies. Pantera’s DAT portfolio spans eight major tokens: Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, BNB, Toncoin, Hyperliquid, Sui, and Ethena; with exposure across the U.S, U.K, and Israel. Portfolio companies include BitMine Immersion, Twenty One Capital, DeFi Development Corp, SharpLink Gaming, Satsuma Technology, Verb Technology Company, CEA Industries, and Mill City Ventures III.

DATs differ from direct spot holdings or ETFs by generating yield to increase net asset value per share. Pantera argued that this model provides higher potential returns compared to simply holding tokens. The firm has also launched two DAT-specific funds, raising over $100M collectively, though no decision has been made on a third fund. Pantera highlighted BitMine Immersion, which has quickly become the largest Ethereum treasury and the third-largest DAT globally and this supports its thesis that Ethereum will define macro onchain finance for the next decade, driven by tokenization and stablecoin adoption

3. Circle posts 53% Q2 revenue growth to $658M, unveils Arc L1 with USDC as native gas

Circle announced plans to launch Arc, an EVM-compatible Layer 1 blockchain focused on stablecoin use cases. The public testnet is expected this fall. Arc will use USDC (+0.0065%) as its native gas token, featuring a stablecoin FX engine, sub-second settlement, opt-in privacy, and full integration with Circle’s platform while maintaining interoperability with other partner chains.

With $65 billion USDC in circulation out of a total ~$260 billion market, Circle positions Arc as an enterprise-grade foundation for payments, FX, and capital markets applications. The move follows a trend of issuers building dedicated stablecoin blockchains, with rival Tether supporting projects like Stable and Plasma. The announcement coincided with Circle’s Q2 financial results, where total revenue rose 53% to $658M, driven by reserve income and a 252% surge in services and transaction revenue. Circle also noted that the GENIUS Act, recently signed into law, establishes a federal regulatory framework for payment stablecoins, reinforcing Circle’s position as a leading regulated issuer.

Key Ventures Deals

1. Hyperbeat secures $5.2M to power yield infrastructure on Hyperliquid

Hyperbeat, the native yield protocol of the Hyperliquid decentralized exchange, has raised $5.2M in an oversubscribed seed round co-led by ether.fi Ventures and Electric Capital. Other investors included Coinbase Ventures, Chapter One, Selini, Maelstrom, Anchorage Digital, and community participants through the HyperCollective. The raise comes as Hyperliquid’s TVL surpasses $2.B, reflecting surging institutional and retail activity. Hyperbeat is building the rest of the financial stack for Hyperliquid by combining liquid staking, isolated lending, strategy vaults, and portfolio tools, further solidifying its role in on-chain finance

By packaging yield from Hyperliquid’s funding rates into tokenized vaults, Hyperbeat aims to make strategies once reserved for sophisticated participants accessible to a broader user base. Hyperbeat’s product suite includes beHYPE (liquid staking), Hyperbeat Earn (high-yield vaults on HyperEVM), Morphobeat (a credit layer for borrowing against vault positions), and Hyperbeat Pay (a payments protocol). Complemented by its portfolio tracker Hyperfolio, the stack is designed to provide an integrated pathway to trade, earn, and spend on-chain.

2. USD.AI secures $13M Series A to scale GPU-collateralized loans and stablecoin lending

USD.AI has raised $13M in Series A funding led by Framework Ventures. The project, developed by Permian Labs, issues loans backed by GPU hardware, enabling AI startups to access capital with approval times cut by more than 90% compared to traditional financing. USD.AI’s system introduces USDai, a dollar-pegged stablecoin, and sUSDai, a yield-bearing variant supported by income-generating compute assets. By treating GPUs as collateralized commodities, USD.AI offers fast, programmatic lending to AI firms while allowing investors to capture yields tied to the sector’s growth.

The platform has already attracted $50M in deposits during its private beta and plans a public launch with an ICO and game-based allocation model. Positioned at the convergence of stablecoins and AI, USD.AI aims to create a new financial layer where AI agents can transact autonomously using stable, programmable money. The approach enhances automation, risk management, and security in payments and DeFi applications, signaling a broader fusion between two of the fastest-growing technology sectors.

3. Mesh raises additional $9,5M funding to power global crypto payments expansion

Mesh, a leading crypto payments network, has secured $9,5M funding from PayPal Ventures, Coinbase Ventures, Uphold, Mirana Ventures, SBI Investment, Overlook Ventures, Kingsway Capital, Moderne Ventures, and CE-Ventures, bringing its total funding to over $130M. Mesh’s SmartFunding orchestration engine supports payments from 100+ wallets and cryptocurrencies, enabling real-time conversion to stablecoins for settlement. Mesh is “building a bridge between users and merchants,” allowing anyone to pay with any asset, anytime. Backers highlighted Mesh’s ability to provide the compliance, scalability, and security that enterprises require, with PayPal Ventures Partner Amman Bhasin describing the company as “the infrastructure layer for embedded crypto payments. PayPal settled much of its investment in PYUSD stablecoin, showcasing the security and speed of stablecoin-based global transfers.

With integrations spanning Coinbase, Binance, ByBit, OKX, Paribu, and Uphold, Mesh already reaches hundreds of millions of users. As stablecoins surpass $200 billion in market cap and facilitate more than $27.6 trillion in annual transaction volume, Mesh is positioning itself as a core enabler of the next wave of crypto payments adoption.

Ventures Market Metrics

The number of deals closed in the previous week was 19, with Data having 8 deals, representing 42% for each sector of the total number of deals. Meanwhile, Infra had 4 (21%), Gamefi had 1 (5%) and DeFi had 6 (32%) deals.

Weekly Venture Deal Summary, Source: Cryptorank and Gate Ventures, as of 18th Aug 2025

The total amount of disclosed funding raised in the previous week was $255M, 11% deals (2/19) in last week didn’t public the raised amount. The top funding came from Infra sector with $111M. Most funded deals: Story $82M and 1Kosmos $57M.

Weekly Venture Deal Summary, Source: Cryptorank and Gate Ventures, as of 18th Aug 2025

Total weekly fundraising rose to $255M for the 3rd week of Aug-2025, an increase of +78% compared to the week prior. Weekly fundraising in the previous week was up +18% year over year for the same period.

About Gate Ventures

Gate Ventures, the venture capital arm of Gate, is focused on investments in decentralized infrastructure, middleware, and applications that will reshape the world in the Web 3.0 age. Working with industry leaders across the globe, Gate Ventures helps promising teams and startups that possess the ideas and capabilities needed to redefine social and financial interactions.

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