Funding Wrap: Bitcoin miners bag cash ahead of ETF decisions

Plus, a Web3 fan engagement platform found backing from Warner Music Group and Winklevoss Capital

article-image

Artie Medvedev/Shutterstock modified by Blockworks

share

Bitcoin mining firms are deepening their financial war chests as speculation arises around potential spot bitcoin ETF decisions early next year.

Twitter co-founder and longtime bitcoin bull Jack Dorsey led a $6.2 million seed round in Mummolin, the company supporting the launch of a decentralized bitcoin mining pool called OCEAN. 

Meanwhile, the Canadian mining company Bitfarms closed a private $60 million share sale with US institutional investors. 

OCEAN is a non-custodial mining pool, meaning miners can lend computing power with ASIC interfaces and receive rewards directly from the bitcoin network without the company taking custody of the mined bitcoins. 

“It went back to the principle of protecting bitcoin,” Dorsey said at a live event this week promoting OCEAN. “We need the people to have more independent, sovereign options [to mine bitcoin].”

It is Dorsey’s second round of 2023, joining his seed investment in bitcoin “voucher” provider Azteco in May. 

Read more: Twitter co-founder Dorsey leads $6M investment in bitcoin voucher service

Bitfarms operates mining facilities in Quebec, the US state of Washington, Argentina, and Paraguay. The day before the private placement closed, the company announced the purchase of 35,888 T21 bitcoin miners and said the high-energy miners come at the most attractive price point the company has seen since 2020. 

November was a busy month for bitcoin miners on the funding side. Abu Dhabi-based Phoenix Group raised $370 million via an initial public offering ahead of its listing on the emirate’s ADX stock exchange. Northern Data Group secured a $623 million debt financing facility from Tether Group, the company behind USDT, partly to scale its bitcoin mining operations. 

Warner Music Group invests in Web3 fan engagement platform

Warner Music Group joined a group of investors including CMT Digital, Winklevoss Capital, and the NEAR Foundation to raise $3.5 million for a startup blockchain fan engagement platform named MITH, as Axios reported.

MITH allows creators to make tiered membership platforms for fans. MITH members can store collections and rewards on their profiles. The rapper Jack Harlow’s “Private Garden” membership platform launched earlier this month on the Polygon blockchain, according to Axios. 

MITH’s raise is the latest funding round for a platform using Web3 monetization tools to connect celebrities with their fans. Modhaus, a platform for K-pop fan engagement, raised $8 million in November. 

Other notable fundraises

  • The cross-chain protocol Wormhole raised $225 million at a $2.5 billion valuation. Tier-1 investors in the round were Coinbase Ventures, Multicoin Capital and Arrington XRP Capital, per CryptoRank. 
  • Coinchange raised $10 million for its platform that simplifies DeFi yield and compliance for financial businesses. 
  • Decentralized physical infrastructure (DePIN) provider Grove raised $7.9 million with participation from Placeholder VC, Avon Ventures, and Druid Capital. DePIN refers to computing infrastructure, like wireless networks or file storage, that isn’t controlled by a centralized entity.

Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:

Tags

Upcoming Events

Old Billingsgate

Mon - Wed, October 13 - 15, 2025

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will feature conversations between the builders, allocators, and legislators who will shape the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the US and abroad.

Industry City | Brooklyn, NY

TUES - THURS, JUNE 24 - 26, 2025

Permissionless IV serves as the definitive gathering for crypto’s technical founders, developers, and builders to come together and create the future.If you’re ready to shape the future of crypto, Permissionless IV is where it happens.

Brooklyn, NY

SUN - MON, JUN. 22 - 23, 2025

Blockworks and Cracked Labs are teaming up for the third installment of the Permissionless Hackathon, happening June 22–23, 2025 in Brooklyn, NY. This is a 36-hour IRL builder sprint where developers, designers, and creatives ship real projects solving real problems across […]

recent research

Featured.png

Research

Helium stands at a pivotal moment in its evolution as a decentralized wireless network, balancing rapid growth, economic restructuring, and global expansion. With accelerated growth in domestic DAUs and Hotspots supporting its network, Helium is leveraging strategic partnerships and innovative proposals to scale internationally. The recent implementation of HIP 138, “Return to HNT,” has unified its token economy under HNT, simplifying participation and strengthening liquidity, while HIP 139’s phase-out of CBRS refocuses efforts on scalable Wi-Fi offload. Meanwhile, governance shifts under HIP 141 raise questions about centralization as Nova Labs consolidates control over the roadmap.

article-image

Q1 may have been “frustrating,” but things are looking brighter for Q2

article-image

Tokens worth 20% of the current supply of the TRUMP memecoin launched by the president are set to be unlocked tomorrow

article-image

A crypto-industry lawsuit is “moot” now that Joint Resolution 25 has been signed into law

article-image

Fed Chair Powell assured markets that the labor market is in “good place,” dependent on price stability

article-image

As uncertainty reigns, the Philly Fed manufacturing index fell to a multi-year low, but layoffs have slowed

article-image

Base launched two tokens as part of its ethos that everything can be tokenized, but the move sent Crypto Twitter reeling