The Cryptonite 300 competition — Web3 companies worth the bet
Somewhere between the raw startups and the Unicorns are the blockchain, AI, and metaverse companies pioneering Web3 and offering the best equity investment ROI potential in the global Silicon Valley.
Introducing the Cryptonite 300
Cryptonite tracks private companies in the blockchain, artificial intelligence, and metaverse industries. To kick off the 2023 Top Private company competition, our team has compiled the following list of companies in the blockchain sector. In two forthcoming posts, we will present our initial take on artificial intelligence and metaverse industry company maps.
Disruptive innovations blow up existing commercial categories and create new ones by convincing consumers they have a faster, cheaper, and more efficient way to get something done. A classic example is the emergence of the online search engine category in the 1990s. Fourteen different VC-backed companies eventually populated the search category, but when the dust cleared, there was one significant survivor — Google.
The free-market reality to date is generally only one or two companies, maybe three, eventually capture well over 90 percent of the market opportunity in each sector, and the rest get acquired or fad away. We believe that by the time we honor the Cryptonite 300 next July, some of these categories of companies will consolidate, and new categories with new leading companies will have been added to the list.
The annual winners will be honored every July at a live broadcast Cryptonite event on the Stanford University campus. In the meantime, we plan to engage in an interactive process with our community to identify new companies and emerging sectors and shuffle, mold, and refine this list to meet the standards we achieved at AlwaysOn.
We would be honored to receive any feedback on emerging sectors, hot company nominations, and any other informed input by posting in the public comments below, sending a confidential email to theeditor@cryptoniteventures.com, or filling out the Top Company nomination form here.
Public Blockchains
Algorand
Token: ALGO Founded 2017 United States.
Aptos Labs
Token: APT Founded: 2021 Palo Alto, CA United States
Avalanche
Token: AVAX Founded: 2020 United States
CARDANO (Siva)
Token: ADA Founded: 2016 Switzerland
Ethereum Foundation
Token: ETH Founded: 2014 Switzerland
Gnosis Chain
Token: GNO Founded: 2015 Gibraltar
Polkadot
Token: DOT Founded: 2016 United States
Polygon
Unicorn + Token: MATIC Founded: 2010 United States
Ripple
Unicorn + Token: XRP Founded: 2012 United States
Solana
Token: SOL Founded: 2017 United States
Tezos
Token: XTZ Founded: 2018 Luxembourg
Crypto Exchanges (Centralized)
Binance Chain
Public Company + Token: BNC
Bitstamp
Founded: 2012 South Korea
Coinbase
Public Company + Founded: 2012 United States
Kraken
Founded: 2011 United States
Dunamu (Upbit)
Founded: 2011 United States
Crypto Exchanges (Decentalized)
Balancer Labs
Token: BAL Founded: 2019 United States
Bancor
Founded: 2016 Switzerland
Bitso
Unicorn + Founded: 2014 Mexico
QuickSwap
Token: QUICK Founded: 2021 India
Uniswap
Token: UNI Founded: 2018 United States
Custody & Wallet Services
MetaMask (Consensys)
Founded: 2016 United States
Cross Chains
Across
Founded: South Korea 2011
O3Swap
Token: Q3 Founded: 2017 Greece
Swim Protocol
Founded: United States
Synapse
Token: SYN Founded: 2012 Russia
Custody & Wallet Services
Anchorage
Unicorn + Token: ANKR + Founded: 2017 United States
BitGo
Unicorn + Founded: 2013 United States
Blockchain.com
Unicorn + Founded: 2011 United Kingdom
Coinbase
Public Company + Founded: 2012 United States
Fireblocks
Unicorn + Founded: 2018 United States
Ledger
Unicorn + Founded: 2014 France
Orion Protocol
Token: OCEAN Founded: 2018 Russia
Data Platforms
Amberdata.io
Founded: 2017 United States
Dune
Unicorn + Founded: 2018 Norway
Gitcoin
Token: GTC Founded: 2017 United States
Ocean Protocol
Token: OCEAN Founded: 2017 Singapore
Decentralized Lending
Aave
Token: ABC Founded: 2017 Cayman Islands
Compound
Token: COMP Founded: 2017 United States
Goldfinch
Token: GF Founded: 2020 United States
Liquity
Token: LQTY Founded: 2020 United States
MapleFinance
Token: MPL Founded: 2020 Australia
TrueFi
Token: TRU Founded: 2021 San Francisco, California, United States
Decentralized Storage
Filecoin
Token: FIL Founded: 2014 United States
Storj
Token: Storj Founded: 2014 Atlanta, GA, United States
Decentralized Yield Generating Services
Zapper
Unicorn + Founded: 2020 Finland
Digital Currencies
Bitcoin
Bitcoin Cash
Dogecoin
LitecoinBitcoin
Founded: 2011 Singapore
Index Services
Infrastructure & Development
Alchemy Shares and Brokerage Firm
Founded: 2017 Taiwan
Ava Labs
Founded: 2018 United States
ConsenSys
Unicorn + Founded: 2014 United States
Enzyme
Token: MLN Founded: San Francisco, United States
fetch.ai
Token: FET Founded: Cambridge, United Kingdom
Optimism
Token: OP Founded: 2019 New York, NY, United States
Institutional Crypto Services
Amber Group
Unicorn Founded: 2015 Singapore
FalconX
Unicorn - Founded: 2018 United States
NYDIG
Unicorn - Founded: 2017 United States
Institutional Staking Providers
Blockdaemon
Unicorn — Founded: 2017 United States
Figment
Unicorn - Founded: 2018 United States
Know Your Customer/Transaction (KYC/KYT)
Chainalysis
Unicorn + Founded: 2014 United States
Civic
Token: CVC Founded: 2015 United States
Liquidity Providers
Ankr
Token: ANKR Founded: 2009 United States
Rocket Pool
Token: RPL Founded: 2017 Australia
StarkWare
Founded: 2018 Israel
NFTs & Gaming
Aavegotchi
Token: GHST Founded: 2020 Singapore
Axie Infinity
Token: AXS Founded: 2018 Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Decentraland
Token: MANA Founded: 2015 Carlsbad, CA United States
Forte
Unicorn — Founded: 2018 United States
Immutable (Gods Unchained)
Token: GODS Founded: 2018 Sydney, Australia
OpenSea
Unicorn — Founded: 2018 United States
The Sand Box
Token: SAND Founded: 2018 Saint Julian’s, Malta
Sky Mavis
Unicorn — Founded: 2019 Singapore
Sorare
Unicorn — Founded: 2018 France
Payments
Alchemy Pay
Token: ACH Founded: 2018 Lithuania
Celo
Token: CGLD Founded: 2017 United States
Elly (GoCrypto)
Founded: 2017 Slovenia
MoonPay
Unicorn — Founded: 2018 United States
RegTech & Security
CertiK
Unicorn + Founded: 2017 United States
TaxBit
Unicorn + Founded: 2018 United States
StableCoins
Circle
Unicorn + Founded: 2013 United States
MakerDAO
Token: DAI Founded: 2014 United States
Paxos
Unicorn + Founded: 2012 United States
Tether
Token: USDT Founded: 2014 Hong Kong
Yield Aggregators
Badger
Founded: 2020 United States
Yearn.Finance
Founded: 2020
Other Blockchain
Unstoppable Domains
Founded: 2018 United States
Nominate a Cryptonite 300 Company
We would be honored to receive any feedback on emerging sectors, hot company nominations, and any other informed input by posting in the public comments below, sending a confidential email to theeditor@cryptoniteventures.com, or filling out the Top Company nomination form here.
Most Active Blockchain Risk Investors
Over 2,000 unique professional venture capital and risk investor funds bet on our initial nomination list in the 151 blockchain companies listed above. The list below represents the top 33 venture capital firms and other risk investors ranked by the total number of companies by each investor. This list only includes investors in seven companies or more
We would be honored to receive your Top Cryptonite 300 Web3 company nominations by sending a confidential email to theeditor@cryptoniteventures.com, or filling out the Top Company nomination form here.
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