Venture capitalists and other investors poured $449 million into crypto and DeFi deals this week, according to DefiLlama, defying mounting macroeconomic uncertainty around President Donald Trump’s trade war.

The performance was some 62% higher than the investments made last week, the data showed.

The key deals: investments in Auradine, a blockchain infrastructure venture, and ZenMEV, a DeFi startup.

So far this year, there’s been $113.4 billion in deals, according to DefiLlama.

Let’s dive in:

Auradine, $153 million

Auradine’s massive Series C round clearly wins the size competition this week. It was led by the US-based StepStone Group, with the Samsung Catalyst Fund, Mara Holdings, Maverick Silicon, Qualcomm Ventures, and others also participating.

Auradine, founded in 2022, produces a range of infrastructure specifically built for blockchains and artificial intelligence that includes semiconductors and networking and security software.

“Our dual focus on Bitcoin and AI infrastructure places Auradine at the intersection of pivotal technologies that will reshape computing and energy utilization for decades to come,” Rajiv Khemani, co-founder and CEO of Auradine, said in a statement on the news.

ZenMEV, $140 million

The week’s second-largest round is also a doozy, and with only one participant: VentureX, which has funded Uniswap, Ethereum, Chainlink, Solana, and other notable blue-chip crypto projects.

ZenMEV is looking to reorient a dark corner of crypto: “Maximal extractable value,” or MEV.

This is the practice of using bots to rearrange blockchain transactions before they’re finalised to extract profit from crypto traders.

The company sees itself as “reinterpreting MEV from a potential risk into a new source of income for users,” Valen Marcus, co-founder and CEO, said in a statement. It does so through ZenBots Shield, a product that uses “AI-driven analysis, and transaction bundling to optimize MEV-derived income.”

World Liberty Financial, $25 million

Crypto market maker DWF Labs, which DL News has covered previously, was the only participant in this strategic funding round.

The investment in the purported DeFi venture associated with the Trump family was executed through the purchase of $25 million worth of WLFI, the token of World Liberty Financial.

The round serves double duty as DWF Labs’ establishment of a US base in New York City.

“The U.S. is the world’s largest single market for digital asset innovation,” Andrei Grachev, managing partner of DWF Labs, said in a statement.

World Liberty Financial dubs itself a “decentralized finance protocol and governance platform inspired by President Donald J. Trump.” The project currently holds nearly $100 million in crypto assets, according to Arkham Intelligence.

Meanwhile, $40 million

Meanwhile is a crypto company that focused on life insurance policies.

The venture aims to be the only life insurance company “denominated in Bitcoin” and offer customers a way to hedge against future unknowns by betting big on the most valuable cryptocurrency.

”Even though life insurance is a critical part of long-term financial planning, it hasn’t been integrated with a major part of the modern financial system: cryptocurrency,” the company states.

The Series A round was led by Framework Ventures and fulgur.ventures, with participation from Wences Casares.

You’re reading the latest installment of The Weekly Raise, our column covering fundraising deals across the crypto and DeFi spaces, powered by DefiLlama.

Andrew Flanagan is a markets correspondent for DL News. Have a tip? Reach out to aflanagan@dlnews.com.