Morning Minute: Paradigm Raises $1.2B Fund as Crypto’s Top VC Pushes Into AI

Morning Minute is simply a regular newsletter written by Tyler Warner. The investigation and opinions expressed are his ain and bash not needfully bespeak those of Decrypt. And cheque retired our new regular quality show covering each of the apical stories successful 5 minutes, downloadable connected Apple Pod oregon Spotify.

GM!

Today's apical news:

• Crypto majors somewhat rebound arsenic Iran tensions ease; BTC +1% astatine $62.7k

• ARB (+13%) and LIT (+10%) pb alt movers

• BNB shares plans for caller L1 focused connected AI agents and quantum

• Robinhood Chain does $500M+ successful DEX measurement arsenic meme mania continues

• Paradigm raises $1.2B for caller AI money

💸 Paradigm Raises $1.2 Billion Fund arsenic Crypto's Top VC Pushes Into AI

Paradigm raised a $1.2 cardinal money to put successful what it calls the "technical frontier," expanding beyond crypto into AI and robotics.

Founded successful 2018 by Matt Huang and Coinbase co-founder Fred Ehrsam, Paradigm built its sanction arsenic 1 of crypto's largest backers, truthful this is simply a notable widening of its scope. It has already deployed superior into drone-delivery steadfast Zipline, valued astatine $7.6 billion, and space-defense startup True Anomaly, valued astatine $2.2 billion, some extracurricular crypto.

It's not a large surprise. AI startups pulled successful astir 70% of each planetary task backing past quarter, portion crypto woody counts person dropped sharply and Bitcoin sits down astir 30% connected the year. Managing spouse Alana Palmedo framed it arsenic abundance alternatively than retreat, telling Bloomberg that crypto remains an breathtaking frontier "but there's truthful overmuch other happening close present that's beauteous hard to ignore."

Paradigm Raises $1.2 Billion Fund arsenic Crypto VC Pushes Further Into AI

Paradigm insists it isn't leaving crypto, and the receipts backmost that up. It co-led Morpho's $175 cardinal circular successful June, led a effect circular for a tokenized-Treasuries startup this month, and holds positions successful Kalshi and different prediction-market firms. Huang has argued for years that crypto and AI aren't a zero-sum competition, and the steadfast is evaluating AI deals with its existing method squad alternatively than spinning up a abstracted group. But astatine a minimum, the enactment betwixt crypto and AI is blurring astatine the capitalist level…

🤖 BNB Chain Plans a New Layer-1 Built for AI Agents

BNB Chain unveiled a second-half 2026 roadmap centered connected a caller Layer-1 blockchain purpose-built for "agentic trading," meaning autonomous AI agents that execute trades, negociate portfolios, and supply liquidity connected their own.

The concatenation targets much than 100,000 transactions per second, sub-50-millisecond preconfirmation, and sub-second finality, aiming to lucifer centralized-exchange velocity portion keeping self-custody. It would beryllium the 4th web successful the BNB stack alongside BNB Smart Chain, opBNB, and Greenfield, with a testnet planned for precocious 2026 and mainnet successful aboriginal 2027.