Bitwise: Why Are Top VCs Aggressively Betting on New Public Chains?

Original author: Matt Hougan, Chief Investment Officer at Bitwise

Original translation: Saoirse, Foresight News

Industry news often comes in waves. When such moments occur, they deserve close attention, as significant trends are undoubtedly unfolding.

Just this Monday, Circle, the issuer of the stablecoin USDC, officially announced that its new blockchain project, Arc, had completed a $222 million funding round, achieving a valuation of $3 billion. The investor lineup was impressive, including top-tier institutions such as BlackRock, Apollo Funds, and the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange.

The day before, another emerging blockchain, the Canton Network, saw its developer, Digital Asset, secure funding: a $300 million raise led by a16z, at a $2 billion valuation.

Similarly, Stripe’s Tempo blockchain has been leading the race: it raised $500 million late last year at a valuation of $5 billion, and subsequently announced strategic partnerships with companies like DoorDash and Visa.

Arc, Canton, and Tempo are all public chains specifically designed for stablecoin and asset tokenization scenarios. This concentrated wave of fundraising has led me to summarize three crucial insights for the crypto industry.

Capital Always Follows Regulatory Legislation

The multi-hundred-million-dollar funding rounds mentioned above all occurred after the U.S. Congress passed the GENIUS Act in July 2025.

I have always believed that before the bill was passed, the sluggish and low-key nature of U.S. crypto legislation directly dampened industry investment enthusiasm; major institutions were unwilling to hastily deploy business or build public chain infrastructure under unclear regulatory prospects. Now that the regulatory environment is clearer, the industry landscape is changing.

No one can say for sure whether these projects could have maintained their current valuations and completed large fundraising without the backing of the GENIUS Act, but it is certain that regulatory clarity played a key catalytic role.

For investors, the most important question to ponder is: what magnitude of industry opportunity will be unleashed if the comprehensive market structure bill for the crypto industry, the CLARITY Act, successfully passes through Congress?

The scope of the CLARITY Act is far broader than the GENIUS Act, and the final text of the bill is not yet finalized, making it impossible to precisely predict its impact for now. However, it is certain that the asset tokenization track and compliant financial infrastructure will be the biggest beneficiaries. I also hope the final version of the bill will benefit areas like decentralized finance and innovative token designs, though details await the official text. The CLARITY Act deserves everyone's constant attention.

Privacy Protection Could Become a Killer Core Application

A common feature of Arc, Canton, and Tempo, and their biggest difference from Ethereum and Solana, is that all three public chains natively incorporate private transaction functionality.

As crypto assets gradually integrate into mainstream business scenarios, this design logic is highly practical. The transparency of public blockchains is a cornerstone for building trust, but in business contexts, it can become a weakness.

Companies don't want every pending transaction to be visible to the entire network, and employees don't want their salary details to be queryable by anyone via a block explorer. In these cases, transparency is no longer an advantage, but a real pain point.

Even the staunchest advocates of blockchain transparency must admit that the business world inherently requires a degree of privacy and confidentiality. By embedding privacy features at the foundational design level, these three emerging public chains precisely target the genuine needs of traditional institutions. The recent rounds of high-value funding confirm that this track is heading in the right direction.

Traditional Giants Officially Enter the Arena, Competing for Position

The most unique aspect of Arc, Canton, and Tempo is their backing by top-tier corporations and financial institutions.

• Arc is developed by the publicly traded company Circle.
• Investors behind Canton include Wall Street giants such as Goldman Sachs, Citadel, the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC), Nasdaq, BNY Mellon, S&P Global, and Virtu Financial.
• Tempo is a joint venture between payment giant Stripe and crypto venture capital firm Paradigm, with Anthropic, Deutsche Bank, Revolut, Shopify, Visa, and OpenAI participating in the project’s architecture design.

This contrasts sharply with older public chains: Ethereum was started by a 19-year-old college dropout on a Bitcoin forum, while Solana was conceived from a flash of insight by a Qualcomm engineer.

Of course, this doesn't mean traditional giants will necessarily win; personally, I have a longer-term preference for crypto-native projects. However, it's undeniable that the entry of banks and large tech companies brings more substantial capital, stronger execution capabilities, and more professional, standardized operations to the industry.

Competition and collaboration drive growth. I believe that through the two-way competition between giants and native projects, the pace of innovation and the boundaries of development for the entire crypto industry will be further expanded.

After all, iron sharpens iron, and competition and cooperation are the catalysts for progress.