GM,
Two years ago, Farcaster was worth $1B. Today it's looking for a new owner, against a backdrop of 100+ companies that have already shut down this year.
In this issue:
Spray and pray is dead
New buyers are in town
What nobody tells founders
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Events
🏛️ Washington —Trump said “Hyperliquid”, while hosting crypto leaders at the White House. Next step is bringing the perp platform to the US market.
Upcoming:
🇭🇰 Bitcoin Asia — 27-28 Aug, 19 side events
🇺🇸 Stablecon — 9-11 Sep, 17 side events
🗽 NYC Events — 1-30 Sep, 41 side events
🇺🇸 Sibos Miami - 28 Sep - 1 Oct, 6 side events
🇰🇷 Korea Blockchain Week — 30 Sep-1 Oct, 20 side events
🇸🇬 TOKEN2049 — 7-8 Oct, 74 side events
Spray and pray is dead
According to Tiger Research’s report:
Massive concentration of capital is going into a very small number of companies. Crypto VC hit a whopping $13.3B in H1 2026, but it went into only 435 rounds, down almost 80% from 2022's peak.
Seed deals are down 88%
We're left with mega-whales. The middle class of VCs that relied on seed rounds and token-model incentives is being wiped out — they don't have deep enough pockets to compete for late-stage deals.
TradFi now directly participates in the majority of all deals (54.5%).
TradFi favors substance over narratives and revenue over tokens, which helped push 75% of total VC capital into Series A and later.
What remained: payments, stablecoins, prediction markets and CEXs — the parts of crypto that are easiest to monetize and regulate.
TL;DR Spray and pray is dead because the spray got too expensive and the prayers stopped working.
Who are the buyers?
Ironically, the buyer is the financial system crypto was supposed to disrupt.
MoonPay bought 6 companies in 78 days
Kraken spent $2.75B in eighteen months
Mastercard bought BVNK for $1.8B
M&A deal count fell in H1 2026, but the total value hit a record $9.66B. That's because four megadeals made up 76% of that total.
At the same time, DeFi is moving in the opposite direction: acquisitions fell from 24 to just 9.
If the market is rewarding crypto companies that can be owned and licensed, what happens to the part of crypto that was never designed to be owned?
TL;DR: It's the year of consolidation in every sense of the word — fewer investors funding fewer companies, and fewer buyers acquiring them.
Nobody wants to post the shutdown tweet
When the pivots are exhausted, the team is cut, and the next round isn't coming, founders start looking for a buyer.
These last-ditch acquisitions are often about salvaging what's left — the team, the brand or whatever IP may still have value.
For the founder, acquisition is the exit that doesn't require announcing you failed
What founders should know - M&A edition
From the lawyer behind Clanker’s Farcaster acquisition, and who's seen 25+ companies cross his desk looking to get acquihired this year:
Companies are bought, not sold. The best deals arrive as inbounds, not pitches. "It takes one buyer to sell your company, and two to get a fair price."
Most of the work is emotional. The sentiment and the storyline, not the paperwork. Founders have to stay rational while the deal gets increasingly personal.
Smile and be likeable. Sometimes the buyer is doing you a favor. If a big company doesn't like the person behind it, they are probably not gonna take any of your stuff.
All startups are in the process of dying, until you reach PMF/profitability.
Befriend bankers way before you need one. Goldman Sachs may not care about a $5M memecoin launchpad, but a whole tier of crypto-native boutiques exists for exactly this size. Build those relationships early, because when the term sheet shows up with a one-week clock, it’s already too late.
Don't mistake enthusiasm for signal. The buyer's dealmaker is paid to be your friend. His job is to win you over and close, not tell you what your company is actually worth.
Buyers are waiting for you to get cheaper. If you wait until you are out of fundraising options, buyers know you have nowhere else to go.
From our interview with Aaron Brogan and from his article, the Art of the Deal.
Aaron is the founder and managing attorney of Brogan Law, a boutique law firm that advises emerging companies and regulated businesses.
Job & Community Updates
Bitrefill is hiring a Web3 Product Manager
We’re hiring a Product Designer
Lukasz joined Safe Labs as commercial lead
Gen and D0wnlore are cohosting Protoville - a popup village in Busan ahead of KBW
About Us
Mira is the discovery platform for digital finance and frontier tech - events, companies, jobs, and the people building it
We also run a private community for founders and builders
