Cryptocurrency
Usual Raises $10M in Series A Round Led by Kraken Ventures and Binance Labs

[PRESS RELEASE – Paris, France, December 23rd, 2024]
Usual, the decentralized stablecoin protocol, announces a $10M Series A funding round led by Binance Labs and Kraken Ventures, with participation from Galaxy Ventures, Guy from Ethena, Ondo, Coinbase Ventures, IOSG Ventures, OKX Ventures, Wintermute, Echo, Fasanara Digital, Symbolic Capital, Amber, GSR, Psalion, Hypersphere Ventures, Avid3, FunFair Ventures, Leadblock Partners, Phaedrus, JPEG Trading, White Loop Capital, and Krypital.
This funding milestone follows Usual’s achievements:
- Surpassing $1.4B in Total Value Locked.
- Ranking among the Top 5 stablecoins.
- Usual is the first fiat-backed stablecoin to demonstrate sustained hypergrowth since Circle.
Pioneering a New Era for Stablecoins and leading DeFi
Usual aiming to stand out with a DeFi-first spirit and an innovative model of redistributing ownership to its users. It represents a turning point for fiat-backed stablecoins, blending the security of real-world assets (RWAs) with DeFi’s composability and liquidity.
This summer, Usual became the fastest-growing stablecoin on Ethereum, achieving the first-ever hypergrowth for a fiat-backed stablecoin. By embracing synergies with projects like Ethena and Securitize (BlackRock BUIDL tokenizer), Usual is driving a new era of mature stablecoins that create meaningful opportunities for users beyond simple yield.
Notably, Usual has unlocked new avenues for collaboration with RWA tokenization platforms, as demonstrated by USYC’s growth via Usual’s ecosystem, showcasing the potential for creating real-world financial bridges in DeFi. More recently, Usual also adopted M^0 as an alternative collateral structure for its stablecoin, USD0.
Community-First Token Launch
Usual continues to push boundaries by committing 90% of its token allocation to the community. Already live on Binance’s spot market and following a successful community airdrop, Usual is now setting its sights on becoming one of the top 5 stablecoin projects.
Leadership Statements
Pierre Person, CEO and Co-Founder of Usual Labs commented on the news; “We are proud to announce this funding round, which cements Usual as one of the most promising projects of 2024 in both the stablecoin and DeFi ecosystems. This milestone will propel Usual’s expansion from DeFi into CeFi, with the support of backers who are committed to reshaping the stablecoin landscape.”
Adli Takkal Bataille, DEO and Co-Founder of Usual Lab commented on the news; “Over the past five months, Usual has demonstrated its robustness through an innovative model of value redistribution. We are bringing fiat-backed stablecoins into the DeFi era, and the next phase of our journey will accelerate this transformation, creating unprecedented opportunities for users.”
About Usual
Usual is a secure and decentralized fiat-backed stablecoin issuer that redistributes value and ownership through the $USUAL token
For more information, users can visit their website and X.
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Cryptocurrency
Avail Goes Full Stack to Capture $300bn Global Blockchain Infra Market

[PRESS RELEASE – Dubai, UAE, June 17th, 2025]
The only stack that delivers horizontal scalability, cross-chain connectivity, and unified liquidity, without compromising on decentralization.
Avail, backed by Founders Fund, Dragonfly, and other top VCs, is powering some of Web3’s most forward-looking projects, including Lens, Sophon, Space & Time, Lumia, Skate, and leading institutional tokenization platforms. The rollout of the full Avail Stack enables seamless connections between chains to build a scalable and interoperable blockchain in the future.
Avail is focused on building an interconnected Web3 that allows networks to move assets and communicate while abstracting away user complexities to create a unified in-app experience. The Avail Stack, a full-scale blockchain infrastructure solution, comprises Avail Nexus, Avail Fusion and Avail DA as well as a suite of products and functionality upgrades, including Turbo DA, Enigma DA upgrade, Light Clients, catering to a range of audiences; both Web3 native startups and traditional Web2 giants.
Blockchain Infrastructure: A $300B Market
According to Grand View Research, the global blockchain market is projected to grow from $31.3 billion in 2024 to $1.43 trillion by 2030, with infrastructure alone expected to reach $306 billion, driven by modularity, institutional demand, scalable tech, and tokenization.
When Avail launched its purpose-built data availability (DA) layer on mainnet in July 2024, it set out to revamp the concept of blockchain scalability. The founding team was clear in its vision of broadening the scope of functionality so that blockchain could reach mass adoption.
As Ethereum doubled down on its rollup-centric roadmap, the limitations of the current blockchain models became clear; bridges were brittle, liquidity fragmented, and developers faced friction rewriting logic across chains. Innovation slowed, and VC investment declined, as noted in S&P Global’s 2024 report.
Despite market headwinds, Avail raised $75 million in 2024 from top investors under the leadership of Anurag Arjun (former Polygon co-founder) and Prabal Banerjee (former Polygon research lead), to build their vision of how blockchain experiences should be.
The Avail Stack
The Avail Stack comprises Avail DA for scalable, verifiable data availability, including Turbo DA, Enigma Upgrade, Avail Light Clients, and Avail’s 10 GB Infinity Blocks. Avail supports any execution environment with native ZK verification on the base layer. However, the most powerful upgrade is Avail Nexus.
The Avail Nexus upgrade is a permissionless crosschain layer enabling connectivity between different chains. Avail Nexus unlocks liquidity and user access with a seamless in-app experience across multiple ecosystems, enabling a true crosschain economy. No network switches, no bridges, no leaving the app. Nexus fully abstracts convoluted flows and back-end processes, delivering a simplified, intuitive experience. With Nexus, the typical 12+ click, crosschain process is reduced to just a couple of simple approvals, all behind the scenes, allowing users to stay in the app.
If one chain in the Avail Stack has access to key infrastructure, for example, Uniswap or Aave, every other connected chain can use it too, without needing to redeploy it. This borrowed infrastructure model allows new chains to bootstrap with shared liquidity and shared apps, accelerating ecosystem growth.
For developers, Nexus unlocks a powerful new era of multichain applications that coordinate state and logic across environments without replicating contracts. Connectors for EVM, ZK, Optimistic, and sovereign chains make integration seamless for any environment. To complement this is the Avail Fusion upgrade that creates a diverse security model. Apps gain access to pooled crypto-economic security while maintaining decentralization.
“With Avail, we were clear that developers no longer rebuild core infrastructure per chain. We wanted to give one integration that connects logic, assets, and users across all ecosystems. This is the foundation of Avail’s horizontal scalability vision: modular infrastructure, interoperable chains, and unified UX.” – Prabal Banerjee, co‑founder, Avail.
Confidence in Avail’s capability is reflected in the top-tier integrations. Lens Protocol, with over 650K user profiles and 28M+ social connections, launched Lens Chain using Avail DA. Sophon, a zk-validium, raised $60M in a node sale supported via Avail Light Clients. Space & Time, which has partnered with Microsoft and Google Cloud BigQuery, will use Avail to anchor ZK query proofs. Leading players in tokenization and RWAs like Lumia and rootVX are on the Avail testnet. Other projects powered by Avail include Rooch, Odysphere, and Eternal, with 50 more partnerships in the pipeline.
“We built Avail for a world where new chains can launch fast, can communicate and scale instantly. That’s the promise of horizontal scalability, and it’s how blockchain technology can reach population scale.” – Anurag Arjun, co-founder, Avail.
Avail is building the foundation for a crosschain economy, shared liquidity, and composability, all while staying true to the core principles of decentralization and permissionlessness.
About Avail
Avail is designed to connect and scale blockchains with the Avail Stack. Avail Nexus connects and powers crosschain messaging. Avail DA foundation powers horizontal scalability with its 10GB infinity blocks roadmap and functionality upgrades, while Avail Fusion will enable crypto-economic security for the Avail economy. With Avail Stack, developers get a future-proof foundation where apps and assets move freely across chains.
Users can learn more about Avail on Discord, Twitter, Blog
Media Contact:
Shailey Singh shailey@availproject.org
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Cryptocurrency
Ripple (XRP) Rocketed to All-Time High Levels Last Time This Happened: Will History Repeat?

TL;DR
- XRP’s Bollinger Bands have tightened recently, which may be a precursor to a significant price swing in either direction.
- Investor behavior appears bullish, with more XRP being moved to self-custody and active addresses reaching a multi-month high of over 1.12 million, suggesting a potential move to the upside.
The Calm Before the Storm?
The price of Ripple’s cross-border token is currently far from the peak level of almost $3.40 witnessed in January, and over the past month, it has been hovering in the $2.08-$2.47 range. Currently, it trades at roughly $2.22 (according to CoinGecko’s data), but the tightening Bollinger Bands imply that a significant move could be on the way, as xoom recently posted about.
XRP Bollinger bands tightening.
Every time we’ve seen this happen, you know what happens next 😉 pic.twitter.com/1wzH9Kc9rp
— xoom (@Mr_Xoom) June 16, 2025
Developed by John Bollinger in the 1980s, the technical tool helps identify overbought or oversold conditions, indicating possible trend reversals. When the bands tighten, it signals low volatility – a sign that a big move may be approaching soon.
As CryptoPotato reported, the bands squeezed substantially towards the end of 2024 when XRP was worth approximately $2.10. In the weeks ahead, the token experienced a major bull run, almost matching its all-time high.
The bands tightened again in April this year when Ripple’s native cryptocurrency was trading at around $2.13. Several days later, the price soared above $2.60.
However, the indicator isn’t a guaranteed signal for a rally – at times, the price may stay flat or even drop sharply. On that note, some users on X speculated in the comments whether a pullback to $2 could be next.
Something Entirely for the Bulls
CoinGlass’ data shows that it has been rare for exchange inflows to surpass outflows over the past several weeks. This suggests that many investors have opted to move their holdings off centralized platforms toward self-custody methods, which reduces the immediate selling pressure.
Another element that could be seen as a positive sign from the bulls is the increasing number of active XRP addresses. Earlier this week, the popular X user Ali Martinez revealed that the figure jumped to a multi-month high of over 1.12 million, which reflects increased adoption or utility of the network.
Meanwhile, if you want to explore some optimistic price predictions involving Ripple’s cryptocurrency, feel free to take a look at our dedicated article here.
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Cryptocurrency
Whales Move Big: Binance Sees 4,500 BTC Withdrawn and $400M Stablecoin Inflows

The Bitcoin and broader crypto markets are facing another decline as Middle East tensions rise. This follows President Trump’s abrupt departure from the annual G7 meeting in Canada and a warning aimed at Tehran.
Despite this, a shift in market behavior has been detected on Binance, which points to a potential return of bullish sentiment, especially among large investors.
Imminent Bitcoin Breakout
On June 16, Binance recorded a single-day outflow of nearly 4,500 BTC, which, according to CryptoQuant, is one of the largest such events this month. Historically, such large-scale withdrawals are interpreted as a sign of accumulation, which often preceded upward price movement due to reduced supply pressure on exchanges.
At the same time, Binance witnessed two major stablecoin inflows – each exceeding $400 million – on June 13 and June 15. These back-to-back capital movements are among the strongest inflow surges seen in recent months.
Large stablecoin deposits are commonly viewed as a precursor to market activity and imply that significant capital is being positioned for potential asset purchases. In this context, the synchronized timing of stablecoin inflows with the large Bitcoin withdrawal points to strategic buy-side readiness among whales or institutional players.
The combined behavior creates a notable on-chain pattern: while Bitcoin is being pulled from circulation on exchanges, the influx of stablecoins reflects growing liquidity aimed at entering the market. This divergence between diminishing sell-side pressure and increasing buy-side potential establishes a bullish supply-demand setup.
If historical trends hold, this positioning could serve as a catalyst for a fresh price breakout in Bitcoin. The aggressive movement of capital suggests renewed risk appetite and a broader market optimism heading into the second half of June.
While on-chain data signals accumulation, derivatives market trends point to rising bearish exposure, which has created conditions ripe for a sharp reversal if sentiment shifts.
BTC’s Two Key Pressure-Release Valves
Crypto analytics firm, Swissblock, pointed to two potential catalysts that could trigger a sharp move in Bitcoin’s price: a de-escalation of geopolitical tensions and a dovish outcome from Wednesday’s FOMC meeting.
The firm noted that the BTC perpetual futures funding rate has turned negative, which means that short sellers are currently paying to maintain their positions. This is an imbalance that indicates bearish overcrowding. This setup raises the risk of a short squeeze if sentiment shifts.
According to Swissblock, even a single positive geopolitical headline could cause BTC to rally quickly, targeting bear liquidation zones.
Should Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell deliver a dovish message midweek, it would add bullish momentum. With funding deeply negative and short positions piling up, the market appears to be primed for a sharp reversal if either of these pressure-release valves is triggered.
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