dYdX, the decentralized derivatives exchange, has secured $65 million in a Series C raise led by Paradigm.

The San Francisco-based protocol development firm, which is focused on decentralized perpetual swaps, announced a $10 million Series B fundraise as recently as January of this year. Three Arrows Capital and DeFiance Capital led that round, with Wintermute, Hashed, GSR, SCP, Scalar Capital, Spartan Group, and RockTree Capital all participating.“It is a raise that’s coming pretty soon after the previous one. The reason for this is we just see a huge opportunity in crypto derivatives and especially the way that decentralized derivatives can play into the market,” Antonio Juliano, founder of dYdX, told The Block. “Really our goal for dYdX is to make it one of the biggest crypto exchanges period, but on a three to five-year time horizon.”
Earlier backers of the protocol include a16z, Bain Capital Ventures and Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong.source

Avalanche is an open-source platform for launching decentralized financial (DeFi) applications and enterprise blockchain deployments in an interoperable and highly scalable ecosystem.Avalanche’s mainnet went live at the end of September 2020. It is the first smart contract platform that confirms transactions in less than a second, is compatible with the Ethereum development toolkit, and allows independent validators to participate as producers of complete blocks.read more

In a recent tweet, David Schwartz, Ripple's chief technology officer, took a swipe at red-hot automated market maker Uniswap, claiming that Ethereum’s killer app is not decentralized:
Uniswap v3 is not DeFi. If some person or group has an enforceable legal right to tell others how they can and can't use it, it's not decentralized.
Schwartz believes that the protocol is centralized because it is controlled by Uniswap Labs:
They get to choose where it runs, which is sufficient to provide total control.
The executive also mentioned that he had built the very first decentralized exchange on the XRP Ledger back in 2012 together with Ripple co-founder Arthur Britto.source

The Bank of Namibia (BON) has warned individuals investing in cryptocurrencies that it will not entertain their complaints should they get scammed. The institution argues that since its mandate does not currently cover digital currencies, it lacks the “legal power” to follow up on such complaints.
Growing Namibian Interest in Crypto
This latest BON warning about risks associated with cryptocurrency trading comes as Namibia is seeing increased reports of crypto investors losing money to scammers. As noted in one report, the scammers are using the promise of high returns as well as training opportunities to lure their victims.
In the meantime, in his response to an inquiry from a local media outlet, the central bank’s spokesperson, Kazembire Zemburuka, asserts that as Namibia’s sole issuer of legal tender, the BON “does not recognise, support and recommend the possession, utilisation and trading of cryptocurrencies by members of the public.”
While Namibia, like many other African states, has taken a stance against cryptocurrencies, its citizens ( as Zemburuka concedes) are still keen on investing in cryptocurrencies. This interest, in turn, has prompted the BON to issue a risk warning to crypto-traders operating within its jurisdiction.Read More

The former practicing dentist is accused of publishing false statements to manipulate the securities market.The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced on Friday that it had charged Edgar M. Radjabli of Boca Raton, Florida, and two entities he controlled for engaging in three separate securities frauds – one of them related to a token offering.According to the press release, Radjabli owned an unregistered investment adviser firm named Apis Capital Management LLC that allegedly conducted a fraudulent offering of a coin dubbed “Apis Tokens.” These cryptos represented tokenized interests Apis Capital’s main investment fund, the US SEC said. In fact, Radjabli – formerly a practicing dentist – published a press release, falsely claiming such a token offering raised $1.7 million.Furthermore, the complaint alleges that the former dentist also allegedly manipulated the securities market for Veritone Inc., an existing and publicly traded artificial intelligence company, as he announced in 2018 an unsolicited cash tender offer to purchase the firm for $200 million.source

BTC’s ESG issues caught the world’s attention after Elon Musk cited them as the reason why the EV-maker he runs, Tesla, disable bitcoin payments for its products. Since then, the topic has become widely discussed with many trying to find the solution, including the formation of the Bitcoin Mining Council, in which Musk and Michael Saylor had a vital role.
Although in the past year or so, numerous institutions announced their entrance into the BTC space by enabling various bitcoin-related services or purchasing substantial quantities of the asset, O’Leary actually believes that more large organizations are preparing to come on board.
But, this could only happen once the ESG issues of bitcoin mining are resolved.source

Kevin O’Leary, a.k.a Mr. Wonderful, discussing the recent bitcoin’s volatility, the pressure on Elon Musk, institutional adoption, Bitcoin ETF, ESG concerns, and more.
Kevin O’Leary, who recently allocated 3% of his portfolio in BTC, has no plans to sell his coins anytime soon, the millionaire told CryptoPotato in a recent exclusive interview.
He also noted that 2021 is a pivotal year for Bitcoin as more and more institutions are looking to enter the space but are wary of energy consumption concerns.more

The bitcoin dominance rate has been moving downwards since December 2020, when it reached a high of 73.63%. The decrease continued until May 19, 2021, culminating with a low of 39.66%.
There are two main support areas at 39.50% and 36%. After bouncing from the former, the BTCD has returned to the level once more. The latter is the all-time low BTCD.
Technical indicators are bearish. The MACD is decreasing inside the negative territory and the RSI is below the 30-line. And while the Stochastic oscillator has stalled its decrease, it has yet to make a bullish cross nor move upwards.source