Today in crypto, Web3 startup Movement Labs is reportedly set to close a $100 million funding round, BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes predicted $612 billion in new liquidity to the United States Treasury by March 2025, and Fidelity Digital Assets said nation-state Bitcoin adoption will drive big crypto market growth this year.
Movement Labs secures $100M funding round: Report
Ethereum layer-2 developer Movement Labs is reportedly set to close a $100 million funding round to further bootstrap its Web3 efforts.
According to a Jan. 8 Fortune report, the fresh funding would value Movement at roughly $3 billion, making it the latest blockchain unicorn.
In 2024, Movement Labs reportedly secured a $38 million Series A funding round led by Polychain Capital. By December, Movement had launched its mainnet and native token, known as MOVE. Roughly 40% of the MOVE token will be distributed to the community and network ecosystem.
Venture capital flowing into Web3 projects reached roughly $1.6 billion in the fourth quarter but is expected to rise further in 2025. Source: Crunchbase
Web3 funding grew in the fourth quarter of 2024, reaching $1.6 billion. However, it’s much lower than the early 2022 highs of nearly $11 billion.
As Cointelegraph reported, crypto venture capital funding reached $13.6 billion in 2024 and is expected to climb to $18 billion this year.
US Fed money printing could spur Bitcoin rally in Q1 2025 — Hayes
Bitcoin could benefit from more than $612 billion in new liquidity during the first quarter of 2025, potentially mitigating investor concerns over delayed crypto regulations in the United States.
Bitcoin (BTC) fell nearly 6% in the 24 hours leading up to 8:00 am UTC on Jan. 8, falling below the $100,000 mark, which has served as a psychological resistance since Dec. 19, Cointelegraph Markets Pro data shows.
Treasury general account (TGA) starting Balance. Source: Arthur Hayes/Substack
While President-elect Donald Trump’s upcoming inauguration on Jan. 20 is seen as a positive for the cryptocurrency industry, delays in implementing crypto regulations could dampen investor sentiment and drive down valuations.
However, the addition of $612 billion in new liquidity to the US Treasury by March 2025 may counterbalance any regulatory disappointment, according to Arthur Hayes, co-founder of BitMEX. In a Jan. 7 blog post, Hayes wrote:
“A letdown by team Trump on his proposed pro-crypto and pro-business legislation can be covered by an extremely positive dollar liquidity environment, an increase of up to $612 billion in the first quarter.”
According to Hayes, money printing will accelerate after Trump’s inauguration, leading to a local top for Bitcoin in March before the start of a potential correction.
Nation-state Bitcoin adoption to drive crypto growth this year, says Fidelity
Fidelity Digital Assets said in its latest research paper that it expects more countries will add Bitcoin into their national strategic reserves this year which will kick off significant crypto market growth.
“We anticipate more nation-states, central banks, sovereign wealth funds, and government treasuries will look to establish strategic positions in Bitcoin,” said Fidelity Digital Assets research analyst Matt Hogan in the firm’s Jan. 7 “2025 Look Ahead” paper.
Hogan said these establishments could look to Bhutan and El Salvador “and the substantial returns they have been able to glean from such positions in a relatively short amount of time.”
Top largest Bitcoin holdings by nation states. Source: FDA
He said not making a Bitcoin (BTC) allocation could become more of a risk to nations than making one due to challenges such as debilitating inflation, currency debasement, and increasingly crushing fiscal deficits.
He also predicted that tokenization will be the “killer app” of 2025, with onchain value doubling from $14 billion to $30 billion by the end of the year and that digital asset-structured and managed products would “go mainstream.”
