Crypto Investment Slowdown Will Continue Rest of 2022, KPMG Predicts

Global investments in cryptocurrency companies pulled back to $14.2 billion in the first half of 2022 from a record $32.1 billion last year, a slowdown that’s expected to continue, according to a new report from global audit and consulting firm KPMG.

“Despite the crypto space collapsing significantly since midway through Q1 22 due to the unexpected Russia-Ukraine conflict, rising inflation and the challenges experienced by the Terra crypto ecosystem, investment at midyear remained well above all years prior to 2021,” KPMG noted in its report. “This highlights the growing maturity of the space and the breadth of technologies and solutions attracting investment.”

The top deals in the first half of the year were venture capital investors putting $550 million in crypto custody firm Fireblocks, $450 million in Ethereum infrastructure builder ConsenSy and $400 million into crypto exchange FTX.

In the second half of the year, KPMG expects investors to move away from companies offering coins and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and toward blockchain infrastructure projects, particularly those that involve the use of blockchain in updating financial technology. The firm sees a growing focus on compliance and transaction traceability-related products and increased corporate interest in stablecoins as a lower-risk path to investing in crypto.

KPMG predicts that well-managed crypto companies with healthy risk and cost-management strategies will survive the downturn, while the resilience of other crypto companies will be “tested very hard as some look to recapitalize at lower valuations.”