The number and value of raising funds in the cryptocurrency industry decreased by 76% last year, down to $451 million in 2019 from almost $1.9 billion the year earlier, Bloomberg has learned citing a new report from PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP.
The amount of raised funds dropped by 40%, to $2.24 billion.
The report, according to Bloomberg, points out that the rise of bitcoin's price in Q2 and Q3 2019 failed "to materialize by way of increased new capital into the industry."
The PwC global crypto leader Henri Arslanian claims the crypto industry did not succeed to stay against the global crisis as the price of the largest by market cap cryptocurrency crashed by 30% in March this year amid coronavirus outbreak and stock market crash.
"The crypto industry is not immune to the global headwinds and the number and value of crypto fund-raising and M&A deals may be impacted in 2020," Arslanian said in the report.
However, despite the high volatility of the market, traditional and cryptocurrency-related venture capital funds and family offices still remain the majority source of funding, Bloomberg says.
Meanwhile, the BitMEX cryptocurrency exchange considers the current state of affairs as the biggest opportunity that bitcoin (EXANTE: Bitcoin) has ever seen in its short lifetime.
At press time, BTC is trading at $7271 (+6,80%).
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