Mining to AI: CoreWeave's $4B IPO

$500M ETH Liquidations | Flowdesk Raises $52M

Marco Manoppo & Karon Pangestu
March 05, 2025

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Good Morning.

The market is extremely messy right now. Memecoin is arguably dead with PumpFun volume nosedived 94% in the past week. Meanwhile, dinosaur coins and industry titans are vying to go to the White House crypto summit this Friday — some publicly showing their lobbying prowess, other criticizing the directions our industry has been going on.

Check out our latest podcast episode on mETH

In Today's Email:

What Matters: Flowdesk Secures $52M in Series B 💰️
Case Study: CoreWeave's $4B IPO Plan 👀
Governance & Features: MegaETH to Launch Public Testnet 🚀

You read and share. We listen and improve. Send us feedback at marco@launchy.app.

Narratives: Dinosaur coins that know how to lobby governments lol

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WHAT MATTERS

Flowdesk Secures $102M in Series B

State of play: Flowdesk has raised a $52M Series B extension, bringing its total Series B funding to $102M after a previous $50M round. The new funding consists of 80% equity and 20% debt ($10.4M).

The equity portion was led by HV Capital, alongside Eurazeo, Cathay Innovation, and ISAI VC. HV Capital has gained a board seat at Flowdesk.
BlackRock provided the debt financing through its managed funds and accounts.
CEO Guilhem Chaumont emphasized that debt financing helps scale Flowdesk’s balance sheet without dilution.
Chaumont confirmed that Flowdesk was not actively seeking funding, but strong investor interest led to this round.
The firm operates on 150 venues but did not disclose revenue or trading volume figures.

Flowdesk is gearing up for significant expansion following its Series B extension. A key focus is the launch of a crypto credit desk, designed to bridge a gap in the market by providing institutional lending and borrowing services.

Additionally, the firm is expanding its OTC derivatives business, strengthening its position in over-the-counter crypto trading.
To support these initiatives, Flowdesk plans to double its workforce from its current 140 employees within the next year and open an office in the UAE.
The company is also enhancing its proprietary trading infrastructure while ensuring compliance with the MiCA regulations as they take full effect.

Why it matters: Flowdesk's revenue grew eightfold in 2024, fueled by increasing institutional adoption, regulatory clarity, and tokenization demand.

Our take: The crypto markets will be increasingly professionalized - from ETF issuers to market makers and prime brokerages. More trading activities, especially for majors, will move to TradFi rails with your usual players eating more market share.

For builders and investors: It’s key to understand the different market makers and their service structures as a token founder.

CASE STUDY

CoreWeave Files for $4B IPO

Source: SEC

AI hyperscaler CoreWeave has officially filed an S-1 registration statement with the SEC. It aims to raise $4B in an initial public offering (IPO) at a valuation of $35B.

The IPO will offer Class A common stock on Nasdaq under the ticker "CRWV", with proceeds allocated for working capital, corporate expenses, debt repayment, and acquisitions.
Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, and Galaxy Digital are leading the underwriting.

Originally, Ethereum mining was a core part of CoreWeave's business, contributing 61% ($9.7M) of its $15.8M revenue in 2022.

However, after Ethereum’s Merge, the firm pivoted toward AI infra, capitalizing on the surge in demand for high-performance computing (HPC) and Nvidia-powered AI workloads.
This shift led to explosive growth, with annual revenue rising from $229M in 2023 to $1.9B in 2024.
Despite a net loss of $863M in 2024 (up from $593.7M in 2023), the company achieved a positive operating income of $324.4M, a 64% adjusted EBITDA margin, and $2.7B in operating cash flow.

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INSIGHTS

$500M ETH Liquidations in February Crash

Source: The Block

February 2025 saw Ethereum lending markets suffer $500M in liquidations, the second-largest monthly event in DeFi history after the May 2021 crash ($670B). The downturn led to mass liquidations of Aave and Compound.

Despite the scale, DeFi protocols remained stable, demonstrating resilience under stress.

Meanwhile, Bybit recorded its largest-ever long liquidations, totaling $1.4B in a week, with $383M on Feb. 25 alone as BTC and ETH dropped over 18% and 26%. Unlike other CEXs, Bybit fully discloses liquidation data, making its figures appear higher.

Futures open interest (OI) plummeted, with BTC OI on Bybit down 35% and ETH OI dropping 41%, reflecting rapid deleveraging across markets.

FEATURES & GOVERNANCE UPDATE

MegaETH to Launch Public Testnet

It’s testnet week. Here’s what to expect.
3/6: Testnet deployment
3/6-3/10: Dedicated onboarding for apps and infra
3/10: User onboarding
With this schedule, we aim to give teams time to refine their deployments on the first real-time blockchain.
Read on for how to prepare 👇 x.com/i/web/status/1…
— MegaETH (@megaeth_labs)
9:32 PM • Mar 3, 2025

MegaETH has announced a structured rollout for its public testnet, which will deploy on March 6. The initial phase will run from March 6 to 10, focusing on onboarding apps and infra teams.

Starting March 10, general users will be onboarded to the network.
The testnet will serve as a critical step before the mainnet launch, with the project targeting up to 100,000 txs per second using specialized nodes.
Developers will have access to 1.68 Ggas/sec computational capacity and 15 ms effective block times in single-threaded performance.
MegaETH raised $20M in June 2024 from Dragonfly Capital and Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, followed by an additional $10M via Echo.
In February 2025, the project raised 4,964 ETH ($13M) through its NFT collection, “The Fluffle”.

Other notable feature updates:

Berachain introduces Polaris.
Aave launches its v3.3 upgrade.
Jupiter upgrades its token search feature.
Grayscale launches its Decentralized AI Fund.
TimeFun launches a platform for tokenizing time.
LayerZero integrates Hyperliquid’s HyperEVM with 120+ chains.

QUICK BITES

Yuga Labs says SEC has closed its investigation.
White House prepares for its first crypto summit.
AAVE reveals new buy-and-distribute tokenomics.
Sygnum Bank expands custody to include Deribit.
Foundation Capital raises $600M for the 11th fund.
SEC moves to drop lawsuit against Cumberland DRW.
Senate votes to overturn controversial crypto tax rule.
Ethereum Devs activate Pectra upgrade on Sepolia testnet.
February's market crash triggers $500M in ETH liquidations.
David Sacks divested from crypto investments to be above board.
PumpFun trading volume nosedives 94% as memecoin mania cools.
Blockstream to launch 3 funds after securing multi-billion investment.
Lutnick says BTC is to be treated differently in the crypto strategic reserve.
Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian joins the bid to acquire TikTok and move it onchain.

NOTEWORTHY READS & MEME

Arthur Hayes’ read on KISS of death.
Infini’s read on the evolution of payments: PayFi.
Ray Hindi’s read on crypto liquid fund dynamics.

— laurence (@functi0nZer0)
3:01 AM • Mar 3, 2025

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Disclaimer: All the information presented in this publication and its affiliates is strictly for educational purposes only. It should not be construed or taken as financial, legal, investment, or any other form of advice.