Alphabet, Google’s parent company, is making a further foray into crypto with a new round of funding for Digital Currency Group (DCG), which owns Grayscale Investments. This increased DCG’s market value to USD 10bn.
The round was led by Japanese venture firm SoftBank. It brought in USD 700m, making it the second largest in the crypto sector, according to a report published in the Wall Street Journal.
Alphabet made a USD 100m investment in DCG through its capitalG venture capital fund, which has USD 3bn under management.
Barry Silbert, founder and CEO of DCG, spoke out about the funding round in an interview. He said that the round was not meant to raise money but to let early investors exit and take profits.
Google’s stake in DCG is its first foray into crypto-native companies. CapitalG’s general partnership David Lawee told the Wall Street Journal that he saw similarities between the internet companies of the dot-com boom, and the crypto companies of today. He also noted that crypto is showing signs of staying power and mentioned decentralized finance ( DeFi ) as an interesting field.
Lawee was quoted in the newspaper saying that crypto is now a more broad concept than Bitcoin.
Google is not only investing in DCG but has also made an investment in Robinhood, a popular US trading app that allows users to trade a variety of cryptoassets in addition to traditional financial instruments such as stocks and options.
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