Between September 2021 and June 2022, Alphabet, the parent company of Google, made more investments in blockchain and cryptocurrency businesses than any other publicly traded company, according to a new study.
According to data gathered by market research company Blockdata, the US IT giant invested $1.5 billion in the sector during a nine-month period, concentrating its efforts on just four blockchain startups: Fireblocks, Dapper Labs, Voltage, and Digital Currency Group.
Comparatively speaking, Alphabet invested the most money into the blockchain sector than any other publicly traded corporation. BlackRock and Morgan Stanley both made investments in the same time period totaling $1.17 billion and $1.11 billion, respectively.
Contrast this with Google's considerably smaller $601.4 million fundraising effort from the previous year, which was distributed among 17 blockchain-based businesses and again includes Dapper Labs, along with Alchemy, Blockchain.com, Celo, Helium, and Ripple.
With $6 billion invested over this time period, Google has raised its investment in the blockchain sector in line with the other top 40 publicly traded firms, up from $506 million in all of 2020 and $1.9 billion between January and September 2021.
Similar to Google, Morgan Stanley and BlackRock took a more focused approach during this time, only investing in two or three businesses. However, with investments in 13 different businesses, Samsung was by far the most active investor.
According to the data, businesses that provide nonfungible token (NFT) solutions have become the most popular investments. Many of these come from sectors including gaming, arts & entertainment, and distributed ledger technology (DLT), according to the research.
The firms that offer infrastructure, smart contract platforms, scaling solutions, Blockchain-as-a-Service (BaaS), and platforms for the custody of digital assets have received the majority of the remaining funding.
The report also revealed that banks have begun to boost their exposure to blockchain and cryptocurrency businesses as a result of rising client demand for these services. The top banks investing in cryptocurrencies are United Overseas Bank, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, and BNY Mellon.