With September now upon us, 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 Whale Address Transfers $56 Million Worth of Cryptocurrency
XRP whale addresses are on the move again to take advantage of the recent price surge. According to Whale Alert, on-chain Analytics and Blockchain tracking firm, a single XRP whale address moved more than 48 million coins worth approximately $56 million to an unknown wallet on Wednesday 1 September 2021.
The latest transaction came nearly one month after two leading XRP accounts transferred nearly 124 million coins in two separate transactions.
Read more on the XRP Whale here.
Swissquote Signs Three-Year Sponsorship Deal with UEFA
Swissquote announced on Wednesday that it has inked a partnership deal with UEFA, the European football governing body, to sponsor two leagues in the continent: UEFA Europa League and UEFA Europa Conference League.
The three-year sponsorship deal will kick off in the 2021-2022 game season. Under the agreement between the two, Swissquote will receive perimeter advertising rights, along with hospitality rights at all 282 games of the UEFA Europa League and the newly founded UEFA Europa Conference League.
Read more on the Swissquote UEFA sponsorship here.
Equiti Capital UK Triples Profit in 2020
Equiti Capital UK, the British subsidiary of the Equiti Group, has published its annual financials for 2020, ending on December 31, reporting a profit of $1.8 million compared to the previous year’s $569,000. This makes a yearly gain of 209 percent.
According to the Companies House filing, the revenue of the UK company for the period came in at $31 million, which is 25 percent higher than 2019’s $24.6 million. Additionally, it strengthened its balance sheet and ended the year with $22.4 million in net assets.
Moreover, the group’s revenue jumped by 17 percent in the period.
Read more on the Equiti Capital UK Profits here.
US Court Orders Ripple to Handover Slack Messages to SEC
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has received a discovery win as US Magistrate Judge Sarah Netburn ordered Ripple to hand over more than 1 million internal employee Slack messages.
The judgment came after the financial market regulator filed a motion in early August to gain access to those messages. The size of these messages is in ‘terabytes’.
Read more on the SEC Ripple latest here.
eToro Appoints Lule Demmissie as US CEO
eToro, the leading multi-asset investment platform, announced on Thursday the selection of Lule Demmissie, the former Executive Director at Morgan Stanley, as its US CEO.
Demmissie will lead the US operations of the company. Additionally, the newly appointed US CEO will be in charge of creating a strategic business vision for the company’s entire US business.
Read more on Demmissie eToro US CEO appointment here.
YJFX to Change Name after GMO Acquisition
YJFX, a foreign exchange trading provider owned by Yahoo, announced on Wednesday that it will change the company name to Foreign Currency ex by GMO Co., Ltd. According to the notice, it will be made effective starting September 27, 2021, after GMO acquired the firm.
The provider noted that the decision to change the name was taken amid an upcoming general meeting with shareholders that is set to take place at the end of the month.
Read more on the YJFX name change here.
Crypto Exchange Bilaxy Hacked, Attacker Took Control of ERC20 Wallet
Bilaxy, a Seychelles-based crypto exchange, announced on Sunday that its ERC20 hot wallet has been hacked, resulting in a heavy loss.
Though the exchange is a lesser-known one, the hack could be one of the largest seen in the industry. The exchange did not officially reveal the magnitude of the hack, but, according to many estimates, hackers siphoned around $450 million in digital assets.
Read more on the Bilaxy hack here.
Cream Finance Lost $25M Worth AMP Token in a Flash Loan Hack
Cream Finance, a decentralized finance (DeFi) lending and borrowing platform, has become the victim of cybercriminals as a recent exploit resulted in the loss of more than 418 million AMP, which is Flexa Network’s native token, and an additional 1,308 Ethereum.
At the time of the attack, the total value of the exploited digital tokens was around $25 million, but AMP prices immediately slumped by 15 percent, taking the US dollar value of the exploit to $18.8 million.
Read more on the Cream Finance Hack here.
Admiral Markets AS Sees a 138% Increase in Active Clients for H1 2021
Estonia-based Admiral Markets AS, operating with the tradename Admirals, released its unaudited six-month financial results for 2021 on Tuesday. According to the press release, the company witnessed 82% more applications than in 2020 and 451% more than in the first semester of 2019.
The growing number on its customer base comes aligned with Admirals’ expansion on Amman, Jordan, where it opened its first office, while securing a regulatory license in South Africa. In 2020, Admiral Markets AS experienced a 24% surge in net trading income compared to 2019, as it was EUR 9.1 million for the first six months of that period.
For this instance, the number of active accounts in Admiral Markets AS was up 16% to 48,638 accounts compared to the same period of 2020 and was up 141% compared to the same semester in 2019.
Read more on the Admiral Markets AS Active Clients increase here.
CMC Markets Lowers FY22 Revenue Expectation Between £250M and £280M
CMC Markets plc (LSE: CMCX) published a trading update on Thursday, lowering its operating income expectation for fiscal 2022 from more than £330 million to between the range of £250 and £280 million. The operating income expectation was estimated based on the performance of the first five months of the ongoing financial year.
The London-listed broker highlighted the subdued market activities in July and August that resulted from the reduced volatility in the markets.
Read more on the CMC revenue expectations here.
ETX Capital Sees 48% Jump in 2020 Revenue, Client Assets Touch Record
Monecor (London) Ltd, the operator of FX and CFDs broker ETX Capital, has reported a 48 percent jump in trading revenue in its recently published annual financials for fiscal 2020, ending December 31. In addition, the total client assets on the platform jumped by 57 percent to a record £225 million.
According to the latest Companies House filing, revenue of the UK unit came in at £31.8 million, climbing from the prior year’s £21.3 million. The figures aligned with previously revealed data for the first eleven months of 2020 showed a 49 percent yearly revenue growth.
Read more on the ETX Capital Revenue Surge here.
