Crypto funding shifts to licensed businesses in 2026

Crypto businesses built around licenses, regulated payments and approved trading operations captured the disclosed funding spotlight in the first half of 2026, according to a review by Dubai-based crypto lawyer Irina Heaver and her NeosLegal team. The review counted 377 deals worth about $11.2 billion and found that every transaction with a publicly disclosed funding amount involved a company whose business model required regulatory authorization.

The pattern places legal permissions alongside technology, distribution and liquidity as assets capable of attracting large private funding rounds. Payments companies, stablecoin issuers, regulated prediction-market operators and trading platforms led the funding totals, sectors where entering major markets can depend on obtaining approval from financial regulators.

Payments, stablecoins and prediction markets lead funding

Payments and stablecoin businesses raised the largest category total, attracting $3.7 billion across the six-month period, according to NeosLegal’s review. Prediction markets followed with $2.0 billion, while trading venues and platforms received $1.7 billion.

Those three categories accounted for more than two-thirds of the $11.2 billion total identified in the dataset. They also share an operational feature that differs sharply from many early crypto projects: firms generally need permission to issue payment products, custody assets, run exchange-like services, or offer regulated contracts in the jurisdictions where they operate.

The payments and stablecoins category drew recurring participation from BlackRock, Goldman Sachs and Gulf sovereign wealth funds, the review said. The dataset did not assign a separate funding figure to each backer, but their repeated appearance points to interest in businesses offering regulated routes into tokenized money and digital settlement.

Prediction markets recorded 34 rounds during the period and produced two of its largest individual financings. Kalshi raised $1 billion in May from Sequoia, Morgan Stanley, Ark Invest and Andreessen Horowitz, commonly known as a16z. Polymarket raised $600 million in a round led by Intercontinental Exchange, the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange.

The scale of those rounds made prediction markets a major component of the half-year funding picture, despite the sector serving distinct legal regimes and user groups. Kalshi operates as a Commodity Futures Trading Commission-registered exchange in the United States. Polymarket did not hold a U.S. license, according to the NeosLegal review.

That split offers a useful limit to the idea that venture funding has become exclusively a bet on regulated companies. Both businesses secured substantial capital, but the review’s wider category analysis shows that the most consistently financed commercial models are those connected to permissions, compliance infrastructure and access to regulated markets.

Licenses become expensive barriers to entry

NeosLegal cited the time and cost involved in obtaining licenses as a growing barrier for would-be competitors. Applications for authorization under the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets regulation, or MiCA, and Dubai’s Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority, known as VARA, can typically require 18 to 24 months and cost several million dollars, according to the review.

Such timelines can favor established teams with capital to employ lawyers, compliance specialists, auditors and local operating staff before generating substantial revenue. They can also make an approved entity more difficult to replicate than a software product whose code can be copied or forked.

Heaver’s review described this as a shift in the types of assets the sector assigns value to. During the 2020 and 2021 funding cycle, protocols and technical infrastructure dominated attention. By 2022 and 2023, capital had moved more heavily toward companies with operating revenue, including exchanges, wallets and infrastructure providers.

The 2026 figures extend that progression into a period where a company’s regulatory position can shape its ability to launch products, access banking relationships and enter multiple markets. A MiCA electronic-money authorization can provide a framework for operating across the European Union’s 27 member states, while an authorization from Abu Dhabi Global Market, or ADGM, can support financial-services activity from a major regional hub.

For founders, that changes the funding conversation. A product’s technical design remains central, particularly in markets where security, settlement speed and liquidity determine whether users stay. Yet capital requirements increasingly include the financial and organizational capacity to obtain and maintain formal approval.

Venture funding and on-chain use are moving differently

The review cautioned against treating private funding totals as a direct measure of crypto user demand. In the first half of 2026, decentralized-finance total value locked, decentralized-exchange trading volumes and active address counts rose, even as venture money concentrated around licensed businesses.

Permissionless protocols including Uniswap, Aave and Jupiter continued to report daily activity and trading volumes that did not contract alongside the funding shift, according to the review. That divergence suggests that capital formation and user behavior are responding to different incentives.

Venture firms funding a payments company or regulated exchange may be financing a long process of licensing, compliance staffing, market access and institutional distribution. Users of a permissionless protocol are often making a more immediate decision based on available liquidity, fees, trading pairs or borrowing rates. Neither measure alone captures the other side of the market.

The divergence is especially visible in prediction markets. Kalshi and Polymarket attracted $1 billion and $600 million respectively while offering different product experiences and operating under different regulatory circumstances. The capital raised by each company does not establish which model will retain the most users, but it shows that prediction markets have become a serious target for large crypto-adjacent financing.

Compliance spending reshapes competitive advantages

The NeosLegal figures point to a market where regulated access is becoming a more durable corporate advantage than it was during the protocol-led financing boom. Licenses do not guarantee product-market fit or user adoption, and permissionless applications retain substantial on-chain activity. They do give companies a path to offer services that require formal authorization, particularly stablecoin issuance, payments and regulated market infrastructure.

That division could leave the sector with two parallel sources of value: open networks that continue to attract users and liquidity through composable software, and regulated businesses whose approvals, compliance systems and market access are costly to build. The first-half funding data shows private capital placing its largest disclosed checks on the latter.