Updated On 11 June 2025
Published On 30 May 2025
May 2025 was a dynamic and impactful month for us. We opened the doors to our new Dubai office, elevated our presence through media interviews and AMAs, and continued our research into the trends driving the next wave of crypto innovation. The month reflected our ongoing commitment to engaging with the crypto community not only as investors, but as active contributors to the crypto ecosystem.
Let’s dive into the highlights that defined the month.
Among this month’s developments was the official opening of our new Dubai office. Designed as more than just a workspace, the office is intended to encourage in-person collaboration among ecosystem participants. To support this, the team introduced ‘HotDesk Wednesdays’ — a weekly initiative welcoming select guests and partners to work alongside our team members in a shared environment.
On May 26, our new office served as the venue for the Harmony Muses Twitter livestream titled ‘Valuation vs Validation’. Featuring Alessia Baumgartner, VP of Ecosystems at DWF Labs, the discussion focused on how projects can stay relevant by adjusting their strategies at different stages and maintaining strong relationships with their partners. Alessia provided actionable insights on how teams can stay steady in a fast-changing market.
Falcon Finance, a next-generation synthetic dollar protocol backed by DWF Labs, announced that it has exceeded $350 million in circulating supply of its overcollateralised asset, USDf. This milestone demonstrates the protocol’s rapid ascent within two weeks from public launch as a credible, transparent, and scalable solution for on-chain dollar demand. Further details on where USDf is available can be found in Falcon’s official announcement.
In addition to the events mentioned above, we reached broader audiences through interviews and media commentary, sharing about our market outlook and vision for the future of crypto and Web3.
Andrei Grachev, Managing Partner of DWF Labs, joined Mario Nawfal for a wide-ranging conversation covering our evolution — from our early beginnings to managing a $250M Liquid Fund. The discussion also covered Bitcoin’s institutional adoption; trends in altcoins and memecoins; synthetic dollars; investments in artificial intelligence (AI); and broader market insights. Dive into the full interview for more insights.
Additionally, Grachev took part in a Cointelegraph AMA on May 20, where he discussed the GENIUS Act, a U.S. Senate bill viewed as a significant step toward institutional stablecoin adoption. He described the legislation as one that ‘legitimises’ stablecoins by offering long-awaited regulatory clarity, noting that ‘with clarity comes confidence’. Read the full Cointelegraph AMA recap here.
Andrei Grachev also shared his perspective on the collapse of Mantra in BeInCrypto's May 2025 RWA roundup, calling it ‘a pivotal moment’ that exposed vulnerabilities in tokenisation platforms. He noted rising caution among investors and higher standards of due diligence from institutional players.
Beyond product and protocol conversations, we also joined the Crypto for Everyone movement, led by Bitget Wallet and other industry collaborators. The campaign is grounded in the principle that digital assets and blockchain innovation should be inclusive and accessible to a global audience. Find out more about the movement here.
Our DWF Ventures team continued to push forward on the research front.
Following their return from TOKEN2049 Dubai, the team published a thread sharing crypto VCs’ key insights from TOKEN2049 Dubai 2025, outlining investment trends, ecosystem highlights, and key crypto verticals drawn from conversations and observations at the conference.
The @token2049 Dubai week has come to a conclusion, marking the end of a great conference and exceptional side events. Check out our summary below! Market Outlook - VCs: Investments have slowed down in the past quarter, both due to poor market conditions and a shortage of
DWF Ventures continued its technical research with an in-depth analysis of Virtuals Protocol, a decentralised AI agent infrastructure operating across Base and Solana.
The price of @virtuals_io has tripled over the past two weeks, partly contributed by the launch of Genesis, a new token distribution mechanism. What are the key features of Virtuals' Genesis? Let's dive in!
A subsequent report, a comparative analysis of emerging Solana launchpads, highlighted the sector’s 60% market cap growth in May 2025 and evaluated new platforms such as Boop.fun, LetsBONK.fun, and Believe App.
Creator pool rewards, an ecosystem with over 900k existing token holders, and the Internet Capital Markets. Launchpad wars are back, and each new contender has brought its best to the battle. How has each of them performed? Let's dive in!
Finally, another highlight came from the team’s coverage of Solana developments unveiled at Accelerate NYC, including Solana's new consensus protocol Alpenglow, Mithril’s lightweight nodes, and ZK Compression v2. As Solana’s infrastructure continues to evolve, DWF Ventures remains committed to supporting the builders shaping its future.
The @solana ecosystem has been on fire, with multiple exciting news coming out from Solana Accelerate NYC 🗽 Let's dive into the latest developments 👇
For DWF Labs, May 2025 was another month of advancements. The opening of our Dubai office unlocked new opportunities for in-person collaboration, while our continued presence in media allowed us to actively contribute to the broader Web3 conversation. In parallel, the DWF Ventures team continued to deliver research that maps emerging technologies and informs the crypto ecosystem. We’re excited to carry that energy into June and, as always, we appreciate everyone building alongside us.
Monthly Roundup
Andrei Grachev
Lingling Jiang
Monthly Roundup
Andrei Grachev
Lingling Jiang
Andrei Grachev
Events
MENA
