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We've written about some very bullish calls on Empire (you'll find some below). Why don't we keep this trend?

So far this year, crypto venture capital has looked like a rollercoaster. PitchBook's Robert Lu told me that third-quarter activity was a bit down, but that may be related to the summer lull.

“There was a lot of momentum and positive sentiment at the beginning of the year, and then... around summer time... there was a slowdown in investments. And I think it's with... the original crypto venture capitalists who were supposed to... They're just investing in cryptocurrencies, they've really slowed down their investments, "They haven't really accumulated their investments, even the ones that have, you know, a lot of dry powder in their money," Lu said.

But after the elections, activity seems to have picked up again. But unfortunately, we don't have the data yet to support this observation. But Lu believes that based on anecdotal evidence, we could see an uptick in this latest quarter.

Now, here's the really exciting part: Lu thinks it's possible we could spend a full year on the project. His prediction is that we could see upwards of $18 billion in venture capital investment, with “multiple quarters of $5 billion.”

Let's just put that number in perspective: 2023 overall saw roughly $9 billion or so. This year it looks like it will bring in close to $11 billion, if not a little more. Of these totals, we saw between $2 billion and $2.5 billion per quarter, Lu added.

Some of that will come from public venture capital firms, which are expected to return to cryptocurrencies next year.

As for some key specific areas of investment, Lu believes the cryptocurrency and AI narrative will remain hot after its launch earlier this year.

He admitted that he initially thought the narrative of cryptocurrencies and artificial intelligence was just a combination of buzzwords. But use cases this year convinced him there were real business applications out there.

“As the AI ​​ecosystem grows larger, some of the glaring problems you see with AI are becoming more apparent,” Lu said. “When that happens, you will see opportunistic cryptocurrency companies come in and say, ‘Look, (this is) the cryptocurrency answer to this AI problem.’” Lu said. ".

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