After a quiet week in the newsroom, let's take a look at the news stories that dominated the worlds of Forex, Fintech and Crypto in our best of the week segment.
XRP Now Accounts for 3% of the Total Crypto Market Cap
The trading kicked off with the news that the world’s 4th largest cryptocurrency now has a market cap of nearly $75 billion. This gives XRP nearly 3.2% of the total market cap of all digital currencies.
XRP saw a jump of more than 40% in the previous seven days and is up by more than 500% since the start of this year.
Read more on XRP Market Cap here.
Ripple Reports Surge in Demand for XRP during Q1 2021
Fast forward to the end of the week and Finance Magnates reported that Ripple’s total XRP sales nearly doubled during the first three months of 2021.
The company’s total XRP sales reached $150.34 million during the first quarter of 2021, which is a jump of approximately 97% compared to Q4 of 2020.
During the last quarter, Ripple accelerated its global expansion through several partnerships with companies around the world. The Blockchain firm acquired a 40% stake in Tranglo, one of Asia’s leading cross-border payment firms.
Read more on the Ripple Demand Surge here.
40% Consumers Are Planning to Use Cryptocurrency, Mastercard Survey Shows
Mastercard, the US-based financial services giant, this week revealed the findings of its latest survey about digital Payments . The company highlighted a growing interest in cryptocurrency payments among 15,569 consumers it interviewed in 18 countries across the world.
According to the survey results, 40% of consumers across North America, Latin America, the Caribbean, the Middle East, Africa and the Asian Pacific said that they are planning to use cryptocurrency assets for payments in the next year.
Read more on the Mastercard Crypto Survey here.
USGFX Parent Rebrands FX Business to United Strategic International
Union Standard International Group, which is in the middle of liquidation in Australia, announced its rebranding to United Strategic International Group on Tuesday.
The brokerage now operates with licenses gained from the regulators in the United Kingdom, South Africa, St. Vincent and the Grenadines and is rebranding these local subsidiaries as well.
The rebranding comes after the USGFX brand, which has caused considerable controversy with its Australian operation entering into voluntary administration in July 2020 and liquidation a month later, losing its Australian Financial Services (AFS) license.
Read more on the USGFX Parent Rebrand here.
Bitcoin Whale Transfers 19,000 BTC Worth $1.1 Billion
As Finance Magnates reported again this week, Bitcoin whales have accelerated the transfer activity of the world’s most valuable digital currency. According to the latest data published by crypto analytics and blockchain tracking platform, Whale Alert, a large BTC address moved 19,000 Bitcoin to an unknown crypto wallet.
The total value of the transaction currently stands at around $1.1 billion. The transfer was executed on 5 May at 19:38 UTC and recorded on blockchain.com.
Read more on the Bitcoin Whales here.
Dogecoin Enters Top 5 Cryptocurrencies after Beating Tether’s Market Cap
Dogecoin (DOGE) is now more valuable than the world’s most valuable stablecoin, Tether (USDT). The cryptocurrency entered the list of top 5 digital assets this week after posting a jump of nearly 15% in just 24 hours.
According to Coinmarketcap, the total market cap of Dogecoin jumped above $56 billion on 4 May.
Read more on the Dogecoin Rise here.
Vitalik Buterin’s Ethereum Holdings Reach $1 Billion
Vitalik Buterin, the Co-Founder of Ethereum, is now a crypto billionaire. The latest surge in the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency has pushed the total value of Buterin’s ETH holdings above $1 billion.
According to Etherescan, the public Ethereum address of Buterin now has 333,520 ETH with a total value of $1.05 billion. Buterin’s total net worth jumped significantly this year following the spike of more than 300% in the price of Ethereum.
Read more on Buterin's billionaire status here.
Swissquote and PostFinance to Launch Banking App Yuh Next Week
Swissquote, the Switzerland-based online trading platform, announced this week that the company will launch a collaborative digital banking app, Yuh next week. Swissquote announced a partnership with PostFinance, the financial services unit of Swiss Post, in November 2020.
PostFinance and Swissquote will introduce the Yuh app to the public on 11 May 2021.
Read more on the Yuh Banking app launch here.
