Y Combinator has made its first venture backing fully settled in stablecoins, sending $500,000 in USDC to prediction market startup Totalis over the Solana blockchain.
details of the onchain transfer
The payout was completed in three onchain transactions on Solana: a $1 test transfer, followed by payments of $124,999 and $375,000.
Totalis said the funds are custodied and managed through Ramp, a financial operations platform that will also handle future stablecoin and fiat flows.
The startup plans to pay corporate expenses, including card bills, directly from its stablecoin balance instead of first converting to traditional bank deposits.
shift in y combinator’s settlement strategy
The move marks a broader shift by Y Combinator toward blockchain-based settlement for its program. President Garry Tan has said the accelerator will continue offering stablecoin disbursements, and that the option will be open to all portfolio companies, not just those in the crypto sector.
Visiting partner Surbhi Dalal, who focuses on digital assets, has argued that using USDC across networks such as Ethereum, Base, and Solana can sharply reduce both settlement times and payment costs.
According to Dalal, typical stablecoin transfers settle in under one second and cost less than one cent. That compares with traditional cross-border payments that may take several days and carry banking fees of tens of dollars per transfer.
part of a long-running crypto push
Y Combinator made its first crypto-related backing in 2012 and has since funded nearly 100 blockchain-focused companies. Dalal said the accelerator is actively looking at projects centered on stablecoins, tokenization, and onchain capital formation as potential areas for future support.
significance for public blockchains
By using public blockchain infrastructure for a core business function such as venture funding, Y Combinator is signaling confidence in these networks as practical payment rails, not just as venues for speculative activity.
The shift comes as stablecoins have grown into a market with more than $200 billion in total capitalization, and daily onchain transfer volumes for these assets often topping $50 billion. The choice of Solana highlights appetite for high-throughput blockchains: average fees remain below one-hundredth of a cent while the network handles more than 2,000 transactions per second.
More broadly, the movement of value onchain is already substantial. The Ethereum network alone has settled over $5.5 trillion in value in the last 12 months, underscoring that Y Combinator’s approach aligns with a wider migration of financial activity toward blockchain rails.
focus on prediction markets and onchain finance
Totalis is developing a trading platform for complex prediction market positions, spanning subjects such as geopolitics, cryptocurrencies, and sports.
After Dalal’s comments flagging stablecoins, tokenization, and onchain capital formation as priority themes, traders will be watching which specific projects in these segments receive backing next. The decision to fund a prediction market platform adds one more data point on where institutional venture capital currently sees room for growth in onchain finance.
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