Let's take a look back at the biggest news stories from the worlds of Forex, Fintech and Crypto in our best of the week segment.
US White House Plans to Issue an Executive Order on Crypto
The trading week kicked off with news that the United States Biden administration is preparing to release an executive order on cryptocurrencies as soon as next month.
The order is expected to bring an initial government-wide strategy, assessing the risks and opportunities of digital assets.
Read more on the expected US Executive Order on Crypto here.
Robert Kiyosaki Plans to Acquire More Bitcoin
Robert Kiyosaki, a leading American businessman and author of Rich Dad Poor Dad, revealed this week that he is planning to enhance his Bitcoin portfolio during the market correction.
The Founder of Rich Global LLC told his followers that he purchased the crypto asset when it was trading near $6,000 and $9,000.
Read more on Robert Kiyosaki's Bitcoin plans here.
YouTube Accounts of Several Crypto Influencers Hacked
The official YouTube channels of several top cryptocurrency influencers were hacked on Sunday to post unauthorized videos asking for cryptocurrencies from followers.
The compromised YouTube channels include BitBoy Crypto, Altcoin Buzz, Ivan on Tech, The Moon and a few others. Additionally, the security of the account of boxing champion, Floyd Mayweather was breached to post unauthorized videos.
Read more on the YouTube Crypto Influencers Hack here.
Facebook Is Putting an End to Stablecoin Project Diem
The Facebook-led cryptocurrency project, Diem, is dismantling itself due to excessive regulatory pressure and is looking for buyers for its assets.
The Diem Association, a third of which is owned by Facebook, has a number of members and investors, including venture capitals, technology firms and even state funds. Some of its key members are Andreessen Horowitz, Ribbit Capital, Coinbase, Lyft and many more.
The project is apparently already in discussion with investment bankers to find a way to sell its intellectual property and move the engineers to a new project.
Read more on the death of Diem here.
Is Poland Still the European Tiger in the Forex World?
In the first in a series of Finance Magnates countrywide FX focuses, we take a closer look at Poland, one of the biggest countries in the European Union (EU), but still with a relatively unsaturated forex market.
We broke the Polish FX/CFD market down by numbers, including FTD's, deposit size and trading volume to see whether or not Poland was still the European Tiger in the Forex world.
Read more on the Poland FX scene here.
SEC Probes Crypto Firms for Offering Lending Products
The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is scrutinizing three crypto companies, Celsius Network, Voyager Digital and Gemini Trust, as a part of a broader investigation against cryptocurrency lending platforms.
The investigation by the regulator is focused on checking if the crypto lending companies should register their offerings as securities. However, it did not accuse the companies of any wrongdoings or bring any charges yet.
Read more on the SEC Crypto lending probe here.
CMC Markets Sees Near Record Client Money in Q3
CMC Markets (LSE: CMCX) released a trading update of its performance between October and December. The update highlighted that client money and asset under administration on both of its leveraged and non-leveraged businesses remain close to record highs.
Furthermore, monthly active clients across CMC businesses remained similar to the levels of the first half of the fiscal year.
In the first six months of FY2022, from April 2021 to March 2022, the operating income of CMC dropped by 45 percent while pre-tax profits declined 74 percent. Though the number of leveraged clients in the period slipped by 9 percent, the non-leveraged active clients strengthened by 10 percent.
Read more on the CMC Markets Q3 here.
Markets Within Markets: NFTs Thrive in the Crash
In a Finance Magnates analysis, we look at markets within markets and how many level 1 blockchains have formed their own self-contained ecosystems.
With a look at the NFT Marketplace and Cardano in particular, this is a must-read on the state of the blockchain world at the moment.
Read more on Markets Within Markets here.
Ripple Gets $15 Billion Valuation amid Stock Buyback
California-headquartered Ripple, a blockchain payments company, has closed a private buy-back round of its equities, putting the company’s valuation at $15 billion.
Announced on Wednesday, the company re-purchased equities from its Series C funding round, which was closed in December 2019. The round was also participated by Tetragon Financial Group which dragged Ripple to court to reclaim $175 million in investments but failed.
Read more on the Ripple valuation here.
Polkadot Joins Race to Become Lead FC Barcelona Sponsor
The race to become the main jersey sponsor of FC Barcelona is heating up, and the blockchain company, Polkadot is one of the key contenders.
As confirmed by the Spanish football club, it is choosing between Spotify, Vegan Nations and Polkadot to be its next shirt sponsor.
Read more on possible Polkadot Barcelona sponsorship here.
