Morning Minute: Fomo’s $75M Bet Signals Big VCs Are Still All-In on Consumer Crypto

Morning Minute is a daily email briefing penned by Tyler Warner. The insights and viewpoints shared are solely his and may not align with those of Decrypt. Be sure to tune into our brand-new daily news podcast covering all the biggest stories in just 5 minutes, available on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

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Here are today’s biggest stories:

• Major cryptocurrencies drop 3-7% amid a broader stock market sell-off; Bitcoin sits at $62,300
• Saylor secures $300 million in cash reserves; MSTR slides 5%
• Fomo app lands $75 million at a $550 million valuation as it pushes into an everything-app model
• Bitmine, Sharplink and additional partners join forces on a fresh R&D initiative called ETHLabs
• Trump signs executive orders aimed at fast-tracking quantum computing development in the U.S.

📈 Fomo Pulls In $75M at a $550M Valuation as Major VCs Wager on Consumer-Focused Crypto

A consumer-oriented crypto trading platform has just secured $75 million from backers who typically avoid the crypto space altogether.

Fomo, a crypto trading app built around social interaction, closed a $75 million Series B round led by Index Ventures, valuing the company at $550 million. Union Square Ventures also participated, alongside existing investor Benchmark and angel backers including Mark Pincus of Zynga, Discord CEO Humam Sakhnini, and Eventbrite’s Kevin Hartz. Launched in 2025 by a trio of former dYdX team members — Paul Erlanger, Se Yong Park, and Prashan Dharmasena — Fomo is designed to make blockchain-based trading feel like any mainstream consumer app: users keep custody of their funds, onboarding takes around 30 seconds, it offers social tools such as leaderboards and copy trading, and it provides access to more assets than Coinbase across multiple blockchains without the need to juggle wallets, bridges, or gas fees. Since going live in May 2025, the platform has surpassed 625,000 users, processed over $4 billion in trading volume, continues to add roughly 3,500 new users daily, and does all of this with a lean team of just 17 people. The latest round pushes total funding to approximately $94 million.

Index Ventures partner Julia Andre noted that the firm sees a genuine market shift toward consumer blockchain trading and a team well-positioned to seize the opportunity, stating candidly, “We’re not backing Fomo because it happens to be a crypto company.” Co-founder Paul Erlanger was equally direct about the challenge they’re tackling: “Onchain trading is simply not feasible for most people right now.” His ambition is for Fomo to come across as nothing more than a regular app — following a similar trajectory to what Coinbase and Robinhood have done.

There’s a meaningful signal in who’s putting up the capital. Index built its reputation on early bets like Figma and Scale AI, and Union Square Ventures seldom invests in crypto ventures. Having prominent, crypto-skeptical venture firms lead a nine-figure investment into a startup in the middle of a punishing bear market speaks to a strong conviction that the next wave of mainstream users will come through a polished consumer experience rather than a complicated exchange interface. The timing also lines up, with retail search interest and trading activity creeping back upward as Bitcoin stabilizes around the $64,000 mark.

And Fomo’s aspirations extend well beyond tokens. The platform introduced perpetual futures in June and aims to become the go-to interface for equities, derivatives, and prediction markets as they migrate onchain — setting it on a direct path to compete with Coinbase’s “everything app” vision and Robinhood. Co-founder Se outlined their intention to pursue acquisitions and grow the engineering team using the fresh capital. With this war chest, they’re certainly positioned to follow through…

₿ Strategy Secures $300M in Cash and Adds Only 520 BTC to Holdings

Strategy offloaded $335.5 million worth of MSTR shares over the past week but allocated barely any of the proceeds to Bitcoin, purchasing a modest 520 BTC (roughly $35 million) at an average price of $67,068, bringing its total holdings to 847,363 coins. The bulk of the proceeds was held as cash.

Strategy padded its dollar reserves by approximately $300 million, pushing the total to $1.4 billion — funds earmarked to back the creditworthiness of its preferred shares and to cover dividend obligations and debt payments.

Some observers view this as a defensive move tied to STRC. Saylor’s dividend-bearing preferred stock — the primary vehicle he has relied on to finance Bitcoin acquisitions — plunged to an all-time low of $83 last week before recovering some ground, and the decline weighed on Bitcoin and shook confidence across the broader market. By issuing common stock and hoarding cash instead of deploying it into more Bitcoin, Strategy is effectively communicating that fortifying its balance sheet takes priority over expanding its coin holdings at this moment.

Strategy’s CEO even purchased $1 million of STRC out of his own pocket and pledged to hold it until it returns to par value — a public display of faith as skeptics question whether the strategy can endure through a prolonged downturn.

So it’s becoming increasingly evident that Saylor and his team intend to defend both STRC and Bitcoin. And that almost certainly means taking a hit on MSTR (MSTR fell 3% on Monday while IBIT jumped /2.5%). Worries about Saylor’s potential collapse may be overblown, but those holding MSTR stock should brace for more short-term turbulence…

🔬 BitMine, SharpLink, and Joe Lubin Back a New Ethereum Research Lab

The two largest ETH treasury firms have just invested in Ethereum’s own research efforts.

BitMine, SharpLink, and Joe Lubin serve as the principal sponsors of ETHLabs, a newly established independent nonprofit research and development lab staffed by five researchers formerly with the Ethereum Foundation.

ETHLabs’ declared mission is to position Ethereum as the global economy’s settlement layer, and its initial efforts are focused directly on institutional needs: quicker settlement, native asset issuance, cross-chain transfers, greater mainnet throughput, and research underpinning ETH’s monetary characteristics. Beyond the three founding backers, community supporters include Hayden Adams of Uniswap, Jesse Pollak of Base, and researchers Justin Drake, Danny Ryan, and Tim Beiko.

BitMine and SharpLink rank as the two biggest corporate holders of ETH, meaning the entities with the largest ETH reserves on their balance sheets are now funding the research designed to boost ETH’s value. Tom Lee positioned this around institutions and AI agents fueling adoption, with the ecosystem requiring more skilled personnel and research to sustain it. ETHLabs is also zeroing in on value accrual and DeFi’s real-world adoption—precisely the areas ETH proponents have long argued the Foundation neglects in favor of maintaining credible neutrality. To ensure this funding doesn’t appear as undue influence, ETHLabs channels every grant through an independent grants administrator, creating a firewall between the researchers and the treasuries writing the checks.

This initiative emerges amid a wave of talent departing the Ethereum Foundation and intensifying debates over who controls Ethereum’s trajectory and how ETH as an asset captures value. ETHLabs is being positioned as a complement to the Foundation rather than a rival, described as two halves of a whole—idealism and pragmatism. The strategy is straightforward: connect the institutions holding the most ETH with the researchers capable of growing its value, and rely on an independent administrator to keep everything above board.

🌎 Macro Crypto and Markets

• Major cryptocurrencies are deep in the red this morning alongside equities; BTC -3% at $62.3k; ETH -6% at $1,660; SOL -7% at $69.10; HYPE -7% at $63
• DEXE (+35%), HASH (+15%) and RAIN (+9%) topped the gainers list
• Crude oil -3% at $73.80; Gold -1.5% at $4,140
• Equity futures are sharply lower as big Tech shares decline; DOW -0.5%, Nasdaq -2.75%
• The U.S. Senate approved a housing bill that includes a four-year prohibition on a Federal Reserve CBDC, a victory for crypto advocates who object to a government-issued digital dollar over surveillance concerns
• OKX and the NYSE launched a joint venture headed by Andrew Cuomo to connect traditional and crypto markets, seeking to offer OKX’s 120 million users access to ICE futures and NYSE tokenized equities
• Trump signed two executive orders fast-tracking U.S. quantum computing development and the transition to quantum-resistant encryption in anticipation of “Q-Day,” a move that also highlights the long-term risk quantum computing poses to Bitcoin’s cryptographic security
• MoneyGram became a validator on Solana, expanding its involvement in stablecoin payments by helping secure the network it’s increasingly building upon
• Bitcoin OG Adam Back has placed a wager that Bitcoin will reach $500k-$1M by 2028 and is confident its market cap will eventually rival gold

Corporate Treasuries & ETFs

Meme Coin Tracker

• Leading meme coins were deep in the red; DOGE -6%, SHIB -3%, PEPE -5%, PENGU -7%, TRUMP -8%, BONK -6%
• FARM (+75%) and GTA6 (+240%) led gainers on Solana
• Base gainers included PRVXT (+60%) and SYND (+60%)

📈 Myriad Market of the Day

💰 Token, Airdrop & Protocol Tracker

🚚 What is happening in NFTs?

• NFT leaders were mostly in the red; Punks -1.5% at 30.5 ETH, BAYC -1% at 9.18 ETH, Pudgy -3% at 4.65 ETH; Hypurr’s -6% at 213 HYPE
• Cow’s (+56%), NPC (+22%) and Cyberkongz (+14%) topped the gainers