Crossmint, a blockchain infrastructure firm helping companies build on-chain applications, has raised $23.6 million in funding.

The company, which has over 40,000 users, aims to simplify blockchain adoption by enabling firms to integrate wallets, tokenization, and payments with minimal code, according to a statement on Tuesday. Crossmint users, including big brands Adidas and Red Bull, use the platform to transition their operations on-chain.

Crossmint is also building a framework for artificial intelligence-driven commerce, providing wallets and payment APIs for AI agents.

«AI agents are reshaping commerce. Soon, they will autonomously manage tasks like grocery shopping or personal styling,» said Alfonso Gomez-Jordana, co-founder of Crossmint. «Traditional payment systems weren’t designed for AI agents—but blockchain is.»

Ribbit Capital led the investment round with additional participation from Franklin Templeton, Nyca, First Round, and Lightspeed Faction, Crossmint announced on Tuesday.

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Solana doesn’t yet have an exchange-traded fund, but one of the asset’s biggest backers is betting the Wall Street-friendly vehicle could come in 2025 — and believes it’s well-positioned to trounce Ethereum’s various similar products.

Multicoin Capital’s Kyle Samani — a major investor in SOL and countless subordinate protocols — has been publicly pressing the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to look favorably upon a SOL ETF. His bullish pronouncements therefore might come as little surprise.

But onstage Tuesday at Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit in New York City, Samani explained his view why Solana is better placed to appeal to traditional investors than Ethereum did. It’s all about the money: the fees being generated on-chain, compared to the value of the asset’s totality.

«A lot of the reason why the ETH ETF didn’t have a super strong reception was a lot of investors looked at ETH and said ‘show me the fees,’ Samani said.

By his telling, they didn’t find much proof to justify investing at its high prices.

Stock traders often look at a company’s price to earnings ratio in deciding whether it’s over or undervalued; in other words, when to invest. Crypto doesn’t have such a clean metric, but blockchains still have revenue and tokens that can be mushed together for similar effect.

Samani believes Solana’s theoretical P/E ratio is much healthier from an investing standpoint than Ethereum’s. His onstage math placed Solana as trading at 30 to 50 times its P/E whereas Ethereum is trading closer to 1,000 times.

Solana’s P/E ratio is «much more in line with high-growth tech stocks,» Samani said.

If the logic plays out then traditional investors might be expected to believe Solana has more upside than Ethereum, and invest accordingly.

Crypto market regulatory clarity was cited as the top catalyst for growth in the digital asset industry, according to a survey by crypto exchange Coinbase (COIN) and consulting firm EY-Parthenon (EYP).

Coinbase and EY Parthenon surveyed 352 institutional investors between Jan. 13 and Jan. 24 this year.

86% of those surveyed said they had exposure to digital assets or planned to make allocations in 2025, and 84% said they had increased allocations to crypto and crypto-related products in 2024.

59% of respondents said they planned to allocate more than 5% of their assets under management (AUM) to cryptocurrencies in 2025.

An improving regulatory backdrop under Donald Trump’s new administration is viewed as a large tailwind for the digital asset industry. The President has promised to make the U.S. the «crypto capital of the world.»

Altcoins are also becoming increasingly popular amongst institutional investors, according to the survey. 73% of respondents said they held tokens other than bitcoin (BTC) and ether (ETH), led by hedge funds at 80%.

About half of those surveyed said they leverage stablecoins, with yield generation, transactions, and foreign exchange cited as the main use cases.

60% of investors said they preferred to gain exposure to crypto via registered vehicles such as exchange-traded products (ETPs).

The survey focused on decision makers in the U.S. and Europe, with some participation from investors worldwide.

Read more: U.S. Crypto Investors Are Still Piling Into Memecoins Despite the Huge Risks: Kraken