Morgan Stanley And SoFi Join $104M ZeroHash Funding Round That Creates New $1B Crypto Infrastructure Unicorn In 2025
News Summary
Cryptocurrency infrastructure startup ZeroHash achieved unicorn status with a $104 million Series D-2 financing round, valuing the company at $1 billion. The funding was led by Interactive Brokers, with significant participation from Wall Street heavyweights including Morgan Stanley, SoFi Technologies, and funds managed by Apollo Global Management. ZeroHash noted that this round marks the first cryptocurrency infrastructure investment for many of these marquee institutions, facilitated by a more favorable regulatory climate under President Donald Trump. ZeroHash founder and CEO Edward Woodford stated the company is building the "Amazon Web Services of on-chain infrastructure." ZeroHash CFO Adam Berg disclosed that many large bank CEOs and financial services executives are now spending over 50% of their time driving on-chain innovation within their firms. ZeroHash currently powers crypto solutions for over 5 million users across 190 countries, serving clients like Interactive Brokers, Stripe, and BlackRock's BUIDL Fund. SoFi CEO Anthony Noto highlighted blockchain as a "technology super cycle" set to reshape financial services.
Background
With Donald Trump's re-election as US President in 2025, the cryptocurrency regulatory environment in the United States has shifted from prior skepticism to a more open and supportive stance towards emerging technologies. This change is prompting traditional Wall Street financial institutions to re-evaluate and actively embrace the digital asset space. Against this backdrop, blockchain technology is viewed as a "technology super cycle" poised to revolutionize financial services, making them faster, cheaper, and easier. Crypto infrastructure providers like ZeroHash are emerging to offer compliant, embeddable solutions that enable traditional financial institutions to innovate and expand their offerings in the digital asset realm.
In-Depth AI Insights
What truly drives Wall Street's accelerated embrace of crypto infrastructure under the Trump administration? - Significant Regulatory Clarity: The Trump administration's more open stance on cryptocurrency has largely removed the prior uncertainty and skepticism seen under Gary Gensler's SEC, providing traditional financial institutions with greater compliance assurance to enter the space. - Competitive Pressure and Client Demand: As cryptocurrency and tokenization become an undeniable trend, traditional financial institutions face intense pressure to innovate or risk obsolescence. Growing client demand for digital asset services forces these institutions to accelerate their adoption to avoid losing market share. - Efficiency and Cost Advantages: Blockchain technology promises faster, cheaper, and easier financial services, which is highly attractive to traditional financial institutions seeking efficiency gains and reduced operational costs. Investing in infrastructure is a prerequisite for realizing these benefits. What are the deeper strategic implications for traditional financial institutions investing in or partnering with crypto infrastructure providers like ZeroHash? - Strategic Defense and Offense: Investing in ZeroHash is both a defensive play to prevent emerging fintechs from eroding their traditional business and an offensive strategy to tap into new revenue streams by offering novel products and services, such as crypto trading and tokenized assets. - Fundamental Business Model Shift: This signifies that traditional financial institutions no longer view cryptocurrency merely as a speculative asset but see its underlying technology, blockchain, as a critical component for building the future financial system. Executives dedicating significant time to on-chain innovation underscores this shift. - Enhanced Control over the Digital Asset Ecosystem: By investing and partnering, traditional institutions can secure a foothold in the rapidly evolving digital asset ecosystem, influencing its direction and ensuring their activities align with established regulatory frameworks. Beyond the immediate unicorn valuation, what are the long-term investment prospects and potential risks for companies like ZeroHash in this evolving market and regulatory landscape? - Investment Prospects: - Network Effects and Economies of Scale: As more financial institutions and businesses adopt its infrastructure, ZeroHash will benefit from strong network effects, solidifying its market leadership. - Expansion into Tokenized Services: Future expansion into broader asset tokenization, such as real estate and commodities, opens up massive market opportunities. - Global Reach: Given its existing operations in 190 countries, there is potential for further deep international market penetration. - Potential Risks: - Regulatory Volatility: Despite the current favorable environment, policies can still change with political cycles and market developments, posing ongoing compliance challenges. - Intense Competition: The market may see an influx of new competitors, or even tech giants like AWS entering the space directly, intensifying competitive pressures. - Technological Obsolescence: The rapid evolution of blockchain technology could lead to quick obsolescence of existing infrastructure, requiring continuous heavy investment in technological upgrades.