Y Combinator announced plans to fund Web3 startups on September 23rd through a new “Fintech 3.0” initiative created in collaboration with Base and Coinbase Ventures.
Accelerator targets companies building financial systems in their blockchain infrastructure, citing regulatory clarity and infrastructure maturity as key factors that enable the sector to grow.
The announcement was released simultaneously by Y Combinator and Base on September 23rd, and positions it as the foundation of a new financial era where blockchain technology is instantly settled worldwide for less than a cent.
Y Combinator combines this with a third evolution in financial technology, following the first digitalization of the 1990s and the advent of API-based services over the past decade.
According to the announcement, three factors are consistent, making current chain finance feasible. The Genius Act established federal regulations for Stablecoins, bringing interest in the growth of its market capitalization of $30 billion and launching its own Stablecoins by Amazon and Walmart.
Additionally, Layer 2 (L2) blockchain infrastructure achieves sub-second sub-cent transaction processing, reporting platform assets of nearly $15 billion on a base.
The third factor cited was an increase in market demand, representing an estimated 560 million crypto users last year at $30 trillion in 300% Stablecoin settlements last year, representing a 300% increase from the previous year.
Strategic areas of focus
Y Combinator has identified three priority funding areas. Stablecoins represent a major opportunity, with dollar-covered digital currencies certifying the model for instant global payments.
Accelerators are looking for companies to build commercial platforms from local currency stubcoin and crypto. Base reported more than $4 billion in Stablecoin value across the platform, including EURC, CADC, IDRX and additional local variants.
The second focus area is the tokenization and trading application. The initiative is aimed at startups that apply blockchain rails to traditional assets, allowing programmable equity tokens and global access to previous non-liquid markets.
JPMorgan recently launched a USD-supported deposit token in Base via the Kinexys platform, demonstrating the institutional adoption of tokenized assets for immediate settlement.
The application and AI agents are made up of a third sector, with Y-combinator backing companies building on-chain social platforms and autonomous trading systems.
Base’s Clanker AI agents generated more than $13 million in revenue by launching tokens via text commands over the first five months, while other agents ran transactions to create forecast markets.
The Y Combinator places the regulatory environment as a key enabler for this fundraising focus.
Accelerator argued that previous regulatory uncertainties have hampered the construction of Crypto’s generation of businesses, and that the current federal framework is essential to the founder’s trust in pursuing financial services on the chain.
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