In a traditionally quiet week for news, here are the top stories from the world's of forex, fintech and crypto, in our best of the week segment.
Ripple (XRP) SEC Drama and Crash
Without a doubt, the focus of this week's crypto news has been the drama centred around Ripple. As Finance Magnates reported, XRP Plummeted after the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced on Tuesday that it has filed a lawsuit against Ripple Labs and its two executives. XRP crashed more than 25% immediately following the news.
The SEC complaint stated that Ripple raised funds through the sale of XRP in an unregistered securities offering to investors in the US and worldwide.
Ripple's (XRP)'s troubles continued as exchanges started to delist Ripple which then fell to $0.23 before buyers started to jump in. Even MoneyGram issued a statement to distance themselves from Ripple.
The drama continued into Friday after it was discovered that the SEC lawsuit revealed that R3 purchased 1.04 billion XRP tokens, worth at least $240,000,000 in 2019 as a part of a settlement from the previous year.
Tune in next week for the next instalment of What's Next for Ripple?
“Sued into Oblivion”: Ledger Users Threaten Legal Action after Data Dump
The week started with news that a number of Ledger users whose stolen data has been posted online are now threatening a class-action lawsuit.
Data belonging to thousands of users was taken during the June breach, including 272,853 hardware wallet orders and over a million email addresses that were on the Ledger newsletter mailing list.
Read more on the Ledger Legal Action threats here.
Paysafe Card Added as a Payment Option in Microsoft Store
Paysafe Group, a global Payments provider, expanded its partnership with yet another tech giant, activating its paysafecard as a payment option in the Microsoft Store in 22 countries.
The collaboration will reportedly provide Paysafe users with the ability to pay for their digital goods offered at the Microsoft Store and on Xbox.com, with plans to extend the integration to include purchases on the Xbox game console in early 2021.
Read more on the Paysafe Microsoft collaboration here.
JPMorgan Presents Bitcoin Correction Scenario
As Finance Magnates reported this week, JPMorgan mentioned in a research note that there is a strong chance of Bitcoin correction if the flow of funds into the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust slows down significantly.
According to the research note, JPMorgan Strategist, Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou said that it is extremely difficult to avoid describing Bitcoin as overbought as the recent rally pushed the price of BTC to a level beyond fundamentals.
Read more on the JPMorgan Bitcoin correction scenario here.
Interactive Brokers Wants Migration of East European Accounts to Hungary
Connecticut-headquartered Interactive Brokers is asking its East European clients to migrate their accounts to the newly formed Hungarian subsidiary, Interactive Brokers Central Europe Zrt., (IBCE), Finance Magnates has learned.
The brokerage is sending emails to its clients across Eastern Europe seeking their approval on the migration of their accounts from the UK-regulated broker to Interactive Brokers (U.K.) Limited (IBUK) to the new Hungarian entity.
Read more on the Interactive Brokers Hungary move here.
Brexit Forces Hirose UK to Shut EEA Business
Hirose UK, the British subsidiary of the Japanese broker, has notified on Thursday that it has stopped taking clients from the European Economic Area (EEA) due to the impact of Brexit on its business.
“Please kindly be informed that Hirose UK will no longer be able to accept clients from the EEA countries due to the BREXIT taking place on the 1st January 2021,” the brokerage stated. “We have already stopped accepting new applications from those countries.”
Read more on the Hirose UK Brexit action here.
ActivTrades Receives License for Luxembourg Office
ActivTrades, an online FX and CFD broker, announced this week that the company has received a license for its Luxembourg office. The broker plans to make the entire transition process easy for its European clients after Brexit.
The new Luxembourg branch has been registered as ActivTrades Europe SA with registration number B232167. ActivTrades already has offices in Milan and Sofia.
"The UK’s exit from the EU meant we had to look at new options to best serve our European clients," said Alex Pusco, CEO of ActivTrades.
Read more on the ActivTrades Luxembourg License here.