Twelve rounds, $1.57B combined. Polymarket alone took $1B of it, almost two thirds. Take Polymarket out and the quarter has one clear theme: 8 of the other 11 rounds went to stablecoin payments and banking rails. The rest went to tokenization, and a lot of the money came from traditional finance: Nasdaq, US banks, Bain Capital, M&G. With a link to each project.

1/ Polymarket (Prediction Markets), $1B

The onchain prediction market raised $1B at a $21B valuation, led by 1789 Capital, the firm where Donald Trump Jr. is a partner. In April it was valued at about $15B, so the price went up 1.4x in five months. The round was reported by Bloomberg and the WSJ and confirmed by a 1789 Capital spokesperson, but Polymarket has not announced it itself.

2/ Jeeves (Stablecoin Banking), $110M

A banking platform for companies that operate in several countries, now built around stablecoins. The round was led by CoinFund, with a16z, Coinbase Ventures and AllianceBernstein. The money goes to its own USDC/USDT wallet with payouts to 190 countries and to growing its card from 25 to 35 countries. Jeeves has raised more than $570M in equity and debt since 2019.

3/ Circle (Stablecoins), $100M

The USDC issuer sold $100M of its stock to Binance at $80.84 a share, below the market price. Binance cannot sell the shares for 2 years. The investment comes with a 5-year deal: Binance promotes and integrates USDC, and Circle pays it a monthly fee based on the USDC held through Circle's wallet infrastructure. The deal is disclosed in Circle's SEC filing from September 22.

4/ Payward (Exchange), $100M

Nasdaq invested $100M in the parent company of Kraken at a $21B valuation. The deal expands their tokenized stocks partnership: Kraken will distribute tokenized Nasdaq-listed shares with voting rights, with Nasdaq Equity Tokens due in Q2 2027. Kraken had 6.6M funded accounts in Q2, up 42% year on year. Reports say its IPO is now planned for Q2 2027 at the earliest.

5/ RQD Clearing (Clearing), $74M

A US clearing firm that clears about 2.4% of US listed-stock trading. Bain Capital led a $74M strategic investment, joined by ABN AMRO Clearing Bank and Nyca Partners. The money goes to digital asset custody, tokenization and expansion into Asia and the Middle East. In March RQD also partnered with Blue Ocean to build clearing for tokenized US stocks.

6/ HIFI (Payments), $37M

Stablecoin payment rails for businesses, with more than $7B in annual volume across 87 countries. Usage among existing customers grew more than 4x in six months. Left Lane Capital led the $37M Series A. HIFI took part in DTCC's tokenized asset trades alongside BlackRock and Goldman Sachs in July and now plans to add cards and tokenized capital markets.

7/ Latitude (Payments), $35M

One API that turns stablecoins into local payments over each country's own rails, such as Pix in Brazil, UPI in India and mobile money in Kenya, in more than 50 countries. Oak HC/FT led the $35M Series A, with NEA, Coinbase Ventures and Lightspeed Faction. The team is only 15 people, but it already holds 39 US money transmitter licenses.

8/ Cari (Tokenized Deposits), $32.5M

A network for tokenized deposits, built and funded by US banks. All $32.5M came from banks, including Huntington, KeyBank, M&T and First Horizon. More than 30 banks have joined and 40 more are in talks, together over $10T in combined assets. The founder is Gene Ludwig, a former US Comptroller of the Currency.

9/ OpenReserve (Crypto Bank), $25M

A new national bank that just got preliminary, conditional approval for a charter from the OCC, the US federal bank regulator. a16z crypto led the $25M seed, with Coinbase Ventures, Jump and Wintermute. It plans tokenized deposits, crypto custody, lending and its own stablecoin, rUSD, which still needs a separate OCC approval. Before it can open, the regulator requires at least $210M in capital.

10/ Fin.com (Payments), $20M

Money transfers that settle in USDC/USDT, mostly in under an hour, offered as an API or as a white-label app. It covers more than 30 countries and 40 currencies. The $20M seed was led by Expa, the fund of Uber co-founder Garrett Camp. Coinbase Ventures also joined. Fin came out of stealth with this round and says its annual recurring revenue grew more than 50x this year.

11/ Limited (Stablecoin Banking), $18.5M

Business accounts in the US, EU, UK, LatAm and Africa without opening a local company, with Visa cards and payouts on stablecoin rails. It expanded its seed round to $18.5M with Third Prime, North Island Ventures, ParaFi and DCG. The money goes to new payment routes in LatAm, Asia and the Middle East.

12/ Hivemind (Tokenization), $17M

An asset manager founded by Matt Zhang, Citi's former global head of structured products trading, with about $1B in client assets. M&G Investments led a $17M strategic round, and an M&G executive joins Hivemind's board. FalconX and ZA Bank also took part. The money goes to tokenization infrastructure and new institutional partnerships.

The pattern this quarter: the money moved to stablecoin plumbing. Eight of the twelve rounds fund the same thing in different forms: business bank accounts, payouts, deposits and a full bank, all running on stablecoins. The other theme is traditional finance buying in directly. Nasdaq bought into Kraken, US banks funded their own deposit network, and Bain Capital and M&G backed tokenization. Nothing here is financial advice, do your own research.

Which round surprised you the most?