Another week has ended, and it's the time when Finance Magnates brings all the important news from forex, fintech and crypto that moved the industry.
Exness Ends March with a Record $2.48 Trillion Trading Volume
Multi-asset broker Exness, which hit the $2 trillion trading volume mark in March, published its total monthly figures. It ended the month with $2.48 trillion in total trading volume, which is a record in its operational history.
The monthly trading volume of March went up by 57 percent when compared to the same figure of the previous month. Year-over-year, the surge in trading volume was 167 percent.
Read more on Exness' March trading volume here.
CMC Markets Expects to Close FY22 with £280M in Revenue
Finance Magnates also reported on CMC Markets' trading update for its annual financial expectations for FY22. It is expecting to close the financial year with a net revenue income of approximately £280 million.
This figure is at the top end of the company’s earlier revenue guidance between the range of £250 million and £280 million after it was lowered from the initial estimation of more than £330 million.
Read more on CMC Markets' FY22 revenue expectations here.
ASIC Extends Leverage Restrictions on CFDs for Another Five Years
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) has extended its product intervention order for retail issuance and distribution of contracts for differences (CFDs) for a further five years, until 23 May 2027.
The Aussie regulator initially brought these restrictive conditions on the CFDs investment instruments on 29 March 2021. But, initially, those rules were only effective for 18 months, which the regulator considered to be a trial period.
Read more on ASIC's CFDs leverage restriction extension here.
Saxo Bank Closes March with 35% Higher FX Trading Volume
Saxo Bank has reported a total monthly trading volume of $460.4 billion for March, which is the highest since April 2020. With the latest numbers, the broker closed the first quarter of 2021 with a significant surge in demand for retail trading services.
Foreign exchange (forex) trading pairs, which is one of Saxo’s top offerings to retail traders, were traded for $152.2 billion in volume. It was 35 percent higher than the previous month’s volume, but around 10.7 percent lower than the trading volume of March 2021.
Read more on Saxo Bank's March FX volume here.
MOEX FX Market Volumes Soared by 28.6% in March 2022
Despite heavy sanctions, the Russian economy is slowly coming on track again. Moscow Exchange (MOEX) released its trading metrics for March 2022 on Monday, noting that trading volumes soared to RUB 154.5 trillion compared to the previous year’s figures. Trading volumes in March 2021 were RUB 90.4 trillion.
FX market trading volume grew by 28.6 percent to RUB 41 trillion, compared to last year's RUB 31.9 trillion, with spot trades amounting to RUB 8.3 trillion and swap trades and forwards totaling RUB 32.7 trillion.
Read more on MOEX's March trading volumes here.
Crypto Lending Platform Nexo Launches Prime Brokerage Services
As institutional demand for crypto trading is on the rise, London-based Nexo has raised Nexo Prime, its proprietary prime brokerage platform for digital assets targeted at institutional, corporate and high-net-worth investors (HNWIs).
The company said the platform will give investors “all the tools necessary to trade, borrow, lend and securely store their digital assets in a single product.”
Read more on Nexo's crypt prime brokerage launch here.
Singapore Parliament Passes Law to Tighten Crypto Rules
The Singaporean Parliament has green-lighted a law that will reportedly tighten rules for domestic cryptocurrency providers. The new legislation will require service providers in Singapore that only do business overseas to be licensed. This is because they are currently not regulated under anti-money laundering or counter-terrorism rulings.
The law empowers the Monetary Authority of Singapore to prohibit individuals who are deemed unfit from performing vital roles, activities and functions in the financial sector.
Read more on Singapore's upcoming crypto rules here.
Binance.US Secures $200 Million in Seed Funding
The US affiliate of crypto exchange Binance, Binance.US, has announced one of the biggest seed rounds in the history of the crypto market. It raised more than $200 million in its seed round from some of the world’s leading venture capital firms.
The investment round, which saw participation from RRE Ventures, Foundation Capital, Original Capital, VanEck and Circle Ventures, has pushed the valuation of Binance.US to $4.5 billion. With the latest funds, the crypto firm aims to expand its operations in the region.
Read more on Binance.US' seed funding round here.
Meta Is Considering 'Zuck Bucks' to Regain Its Market Value
Meta (formerly known as Facebook) is planning to integrate cryptocurrencies, tokens and lending services into its applications. It is considering bringing a metaverse currency, dubbed internally as 'Zuck Bucks'.
As opposed to traditional tokens, Meta's tokens are expected to be controlled by the company (without a blockchain). The tokens may be similar to Robux, the native currency of Roblox.
Read more on Meta's 'Zuck Bucks' plans here.
Bitcoin Mining Difficulty Hits Another All-Time High
With large retail and institutional interest, Bitcoin (BTC) saw a surge in its price during the past week. However, the demand is not only driven by the retail frenzy. Some of the key indicators of the growth of the Bitcoin network, including its mining hash rate and network difficulty, also improved during the mentioned period.
According to the data from Blockchain.com, BTC mining difficulty, also known as network difficulty, has touched an all-time high of 28.587 trillion. As far as the mining rate is concerned, the number now stands at around 200 exahash per second (EH/s).
Read more on Bitcoin mining difficulties here.
