The crypto community has been enjoying a welcome reprieve from the dismal climate of the past year recently, thanks to the modest uptick of asset values and the increase in overall activity. Still, it’s far from clear if these recent gains will translate into more lasting interest in the decentralized economy.

To recap: Major crypto tokens have enjoyed higher prices recently, which has helped web3 trading volumes recover to levels that we haven’t seen since early this year. This uptick even cropped up in the NFT market, where trading rose in recent weeks.

The Exchange explores startups, markets and money.

Read it every morning on TechCrunch+ or get The Exchange newsletter every Saturday.

While trading activity has since moderated from the tiny boom we had in October, the value of crypto-based assets have broadly retained their gains. The total value of all crypto tokens rose from just over $1 trillion in September to more than $1.40 trillion in October, and today rests at $1.38 trillion, according to CoinMarketCap data.

That’s a lot of wealth being created in a short span of time.

TechCrunch+ keeps close tabs on Crunchbase’s web3 funding tracker, according to which investment in web3 startups is on track to post yet another quarter of declines. For reference, web3 companies raised $10.6 billion in Q4 2021, but only managed to gather $2.9 billion in Q4 2022, per Crunchbase. This year through November 21, that metric is at $691.7 million. That final figure puts web3 startup fundraising on pace to land below the $1.3 billion web3 startups raised in Q3 2023, the lowest quarterly result since 2020.