Morning Minute: Paradigm Raises $1.2B Fund as Crypto’s Prime VC Pushes Into AI – Decrypt

Morning Minute is a day by day e-newsletter written by Tyler Warner. The evaluation and opinions expressed are his personal and don’t essentially mirror these of Decrypt. And check out our new day by day information present masking the entire prime tales in 5 minutes, downloadable on Apple Pod or Spotify.

GM!

At present’s prime information:

• Crypto majors barely rebound as Iran tensions ease; BTC +1% at $62.7k
• ARB (+13%) and LIT (+10%) lead alt movers
• BNB shares plans for brand new L1 targeted on AI brokers and quantum
• Robinhood Chain does $500M+ in DEX quantity as meme mania continues
• Paradigm raises $1.2B for brand new AI fund

💸 Paradigm Raises $1.2 Billion Fund as Crypto’s Prime VC Pushes Into AI

Paradigm raised a $1.2 billion fund to spend money on what it calls the “technical frontier,” increasing past crypto into AI and robotics.

Based in 2018 by Matt Huang and Coinbase co-founder Fred Ehrsam, Paradigm constructed its identify as one in every of crypto’s largest backers, so it is a notable widening of its scope. It has already deployed capital into drone-delivery agency Zipline, valued at $7.6 billion, and space-defense startup True Anomaly, valued at $2.2 billion, each outdoors crypto.

It’s not a serious shock. AI startups pulled in roughly 70% of all world enterprise funding final quarter, whereas crypto deal counts have dropped sharply and Bitcoin sits down about 30% on the 12 months. Managing accomplice Alana Palmedo framed it as abundance reasonably than retreat, telling Bloomberg that crypto stays an thrilling frontier “however there’s a lot else taking place proper now that’s fairly arduous to disregard.”

Paradigm insists it isn’t leaving crypto, and the receipts again that up. It co-led Morpho’s $175 million spherical in June, led a seed spherical for a tokenized-Treasuries startup this month, and holds positions in Kalshi and different prediction-market companies. Huang has argued for years that crypto and AI aren’t a zero-sum competitors, and the agency is evaluating AI offers with its present technical group reasonably than spinning up a separate group. However at a minimal, the road between crypto and AI is blurring on the investor degree…

🤖 BNB Chain Plans a New Layer-1 Constructed for AI Brokers

BNB Chain unveiled a second-half 2026 roadmap centered on a brand new Layer-1 blockchain purpose-built for “agentic buying and selling,” that means autonomous AI brokers that execute trades, handle portfolios, and supply liquidity on their very own.

The chain targets greater than 100,000 transactions per second, sub-50-millisecond preconfirmation, and sub-second finality, aiming to match centralized-exchange velocity whereas conserving self-custody. It will be the fourth community within the BNB stack alongside BNB Sensible Chain, opBNB, and Greenfield, with a testnet deliberate for late 2026 and mainnet in early 2027.

The pitch is infrastructure constructed for machines reasonably than individuals. To serve AI brokers that want millisecond execution, the chain removes the general public mempool, the shared ready room the place pending transactions sit, and replaces it with a non-public circulate to kill front-running and sandwich assaults. The roadmap additionally provides native privateness, account abstraction, AI-powered safety, and post-quantum cryptography analysis, utilizing a hybrid strategy that layers quantum-resistant safety on prime of immediately’s cryptography with out forcing customers emigrate addresses.

BNB Chain is becoming a member of a crowded race for high-throughput chains that already consists of Solana’s Firedancer, Monad, and MegaETH. The guess is on a market that hardly exists but, since autonomous brokers settled simply $73 million throughout 176 million blockchain transactions over the previous 12 months. However it’s fairly probably that that is the place the proverbial puck goes, as Google, Coinbase, and Visa are all constructing agentic-payment techniques and McKinsey tasks retail agentic commerce might attain $5 trillion by the tip of the last decade.

Whether or not BNB Chain can ship an aggressive net-new Layer-1 on schedule is the open query, however they’re taking a shot…

🌎 Macro Crypto and Markets

• Crypto majors are barely inexperienced and rebounding; BTC +1% at $62.7k; ETH even at $1,740; SOL even at $77; HYPE -2% at $67
• SKY (+7%), LIT (+6%) and AVAX (+4%) led prime movers
• Oil even at $74; Gold +1% at $4,110
• Inventory futures are inexperienced as oil cools and Iran tensions ease; DOW -0.1%, Nasdaq +0.5%
• The US struck Iran for a second straight evening, hitting IRGC boats close to the Strait of Hormuz as Iran claimed strikes on 85 US installations, however Trump stated Iran referred to as to make a deal after
• Bitwise’s Prime 10 Crypto Index ETF dropped DOT and AVAX and added HYPE after its robust H1 efficiency
• Kraken leads all MiCA-regulated exchanges in liquidity and market protection, per DefiLlama information, with $399.7 million in spot and $206.9M in perp liquidity plus 1,704 markets coated, forward of Coinbase at $305.2M spot and 1,074 markets
• Adam Again’s Bitcoin Customary Treasury scrapped its SPAC merger with Cantor and is searching for a brand new deal
• Ripple put the XRP brand on Kansas Jayhawks jerseys in a multi-year sponsorship, extending crypto’s march into faculty sports activities
• Russia’s largest personal financial institution, Alfa-Financial institution, plans to turn out to be a regulated crypto custodian and provide digital-asset companies as soon as Russia’s new crypto regulation takes impact, becoming a member of Sberbank and T-Financial institution within the push

Company Treasuries & ETFs

• The Bitcoin ETFs noticed $85M in internet outflows on Wednesday, breaking a 3-day influx streak; the ETH ETFs noticed $70M in inflows, strongly outperforming

Meme Coin Tracker

• Meme leaders have been barely inexperienced; DOGE +1%, SHIB +1%, PEPE +1%, PENGU even, TRUMP +1%, BONK +1%
• Robinhood chain memes cooled off after an explosive Tuesday, however VLAD (+120x), ARROW (+200%) and Tendies (+100%) have been notable movers
• ANSEM rebounded 10% on Solana, with Cupsey +26% and manlet +22%

📈 Myriad Market of the Day

💰 Token, Airdrop & Protocol Tracker

🚚 What is going on in NFTs?

• NFT leaders have been principally flat; Punks even at 32.4 ETH, BAYC even at 9.25 ETH, Pudgy -2% at 4.44 ETH; Hypurr’s -3% at 204 HYPE
• AI Artwork Is Not Artwork (+480%) and Limitless (+28%) led prime movers