Digital Currency Group: ‘60% Cheaper to Invest’ in International Markets, US Too Expensive

The Digital Currency Group (DCG), one of the “most active investors” in the crypto and blockchain industry, has revealed that it made “127 investments” between January 1st, 2016 and December 31st, 2018.

According to data shared by the DCG, the giant crypto investment firm participated in 72 different seed rounds, 36 Series A rounds, 15 Series B rounds, and 4 Series C+ rounds (during the time period mentioned above).

“More And Better Data On Earliest Stages”

As an early-stage investor, DCG claims it has “more and better data on the earliest stages.” The New York-based VC firm also revealed that “startups of all stripes have been raising increasingly more money in seed rounds.”

Notably, DCG mentioned in its report that US-based blockchain-related companies had invested the most in recent rounds. DCG, which has opened investment portfolios in more than 30 different countries throughout the world, noted that “the average seed round [it] joined in the US grew from $1.94 million in 2016 to $3.24 million in 2018.” This represents a two-thirds, or 67%, increase in incoming capital.

DCG’s investment report also confirmed that during the historical cryptocurrency market bull run of 2017, project valuations “skyrocketed.” In fact, the firm’s report revealed that “the average seed-stage valuation” surged from $10.68 million in 2016 to $15.51 million in 2017 – an increase of over 45%.

“60% Cheaper To Invest Abroad”

But as things began to unwind in 2018 with digital asset prices falling sharply from their all-time highs, “valuations in private seed-stage rounds [DCG] joined fell modestly” by “an average” of $12.93 million (appr. -17%). Going on to mention that the international (non-US) deals they’ve signed have been “much smaller and cheaper,” the DCG stated that “in 2017, [American] seed stage deals [they] did had an average valuation of $15.5 million” – whereas the business agreements finalized abroad were worth an average of only $6.2 million.

Notably, “it was 60% cheaper to invest abroad” than in the US, DCG wrote. Because it was more affordable to invest in other countries, the US-based VC firm revealed that it “invested in 11 seed deals abroad compared to 8 in the U.S.”

In early December 2018, Grayscale Investments, a subsidiary of DCG, had released a report in which it stated that it holds 203,000 bitcoin (BTC), an amount valued at $780 million (at that time). As confirmed by Longhash last year, Grayscale (and effectively DCG) is  the largest institutional holder of bitcoin. At the time, Grayscale held over 1% of BTC’s entire circulating supply.