Coinbase Ventures, Animoca, a16z and Tether are the four most active crypto VCs in 2026.

Animoca is a fun one:
- Did 80 NFT deals in their history, ZERO this year
- About 230 of its ~600 portfolio companies are gaming, and gaming went from 141 rounds in 2024 to FIVE in 2026.
Animoca is doing small checks now while pivoting to stablecoins and AI before a Nasdaq listing (via reverse merger).
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Coinbase Ventures did 26 deals this year, almost all early stage and almost all pre-token.
They lead almost none.
Seems that Coinbase deals buys them relationship with teams that will build on Base, use Coinbase custody and list on their CEXs.
Maybe not a conviction VC to copy trade.
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a16z closed a $2.2B crypto fund in May, they invest in institutional infra instead of new L1s: Digital Asset, Talos, Stitch, Arc.
Although a16z did less deals, they deployed more USD than the other three combined.
Median round they join is $25M. Coinbase is $10.2M.
Two most interesting deals they did are:
1. Morpho: $175M in June together with Paradigm and Ribbit.
They bought $MORPHO at average monthly market price. So no VC discount.
2. Arc: Circle sold 740M $ARC for $222M at $0.30
a16z took $75M of it. BlackRock, Apollo, ARK, ICE and Standard Chartered took the rest.
Two pure token plays!
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Tether did 13 deals and went alone in 6!
With ~$190B in reserves earning yield, it doesn't need VC returns but it needs USDT distribution.
So they invest in companies and countries that already have some USDT distribution. e.g.,
- @MercadoBitcoin , Brazil, $20M
- @bello_app , Argentina, $14M
- @UseLemfi , Africa and Asia remittances
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Interestingly, these four "VCs" barely overlap.
Across all their 2026 portfolios there are only two shared deals:
Digital Asset and Zcash Open Development Lab.
Both by Coinbase + a16z.