Crypto gaming and DePIN funding has nearly disappeared in 2026, even as the wider crypto fundraising market still looks active on paper.
Memento Research, a crypto research firm, said in a recent thread on X that disclosed crypto fundraising reached about $8.65 billion across 305 deals from Jan. 1 to May 6. But the headline number is heavily distorted by March, when fundraising jumped to more than $4.5 billion because of two large deals.
Those two deals were BVNK, a stablecoin payments company bought in a $1.8 billion M&A deal, and Kalshi, a prediction market that raised $1 billion.
- Without that March spike, Memento said the market is running closer to about $1 billion a month, softer than late 2025.
Gaming and DePIN were almost absent
Crypto gaming raised only about $30 million across five deals, while DePIN raised about $10 million from one disclosed deal, according to Memento's data.
That is a sharp fall even from an already weak 2025. DappRadar said in reseach report that Web3 gaming raised $91 million in Q1 2025 and $73 million in Q2, or about $164 million in the first half of that year. By Q3 2025, funding had reached $293 million, still far below the $1.8 billion raised in 2024.
The 2026 number is about 82% below the $164 million raised in H1 2025 and about 90% below the $293 million DappRadar counted through Q3 2025.
The activity side was already flashing warning signs last year. DappRadar said in another report that blockchain gaming activity fell 17% quarter over quarter in Q2 2025 to 4.8 million daily unique active wallets, the lowest level since early 2023, while more than 300 gaming dapps went inactive during the quarter.
- As for 2026, DeFi still led by deal count, with 47 deals, but raised only around $1 billion, suggesting investors are still writing checks into this sector.
- Prediction markets were a huge part of the consumer category. Kalshi's $1 billion round and Polymarket's $600 million round together made up about $1.6 billion, or roughly 18% of all 2026 fundraising.