Fazzaco Weekly Digest: U.S SEC Strikes Hard at Crypto Again; Admirals Names New CRO; Invast Global Rebrands as 26 Degrees
After being hit by investigations by regulators in the United States, Nigeria, France and other countries, crypto giant Binance is taking steps to ease its regulatory pressure. Last week, the crypto exchange announced that it was withdrawing from the Dutch market and asked to deregister its Cyprus branch as a cryptocurrency service provider.
The recent rigorous investigations and crackdowns on crypto companies by the U.S. financial regulator SEC, have attracted widespread attention in the industry, causing crypto companies to express concern about their prospects for growth in the country. While, a number of hefty fines issued by the regulator have led to discussions about its motivations for fines.
On the broker side, the long-running dispute between iS Prime (formerly IS Prime), an institutional liquidity provider, and ThinkMarkets, a broker of retail forex and CFDs, has finally come to an end. Fazzaco teased out the ins and outs of one of the best-known and perhaps longest-running legal battles in the fx market. ThinkMarkets also launched ThinkCopy, its copy trading platform, last week.
Also of note, Sydney-based multi-asset broker Invast Global rebranded its prime brokerage operation to 26 Degrees Global Markets (26 Degrees); Estonia-based retail FX and CFD broker Admirals announced the appointment of its new Chief Revenue Officer, Daniel Skowronski.
Here are the related details, as well as some of the most read forex, crypto, and fintech news pieces and articles from Fazzaco over the past week.
It's the most notorious and longest-running legal battle in the forex industry. A five-year-old feud that started in 2017 finally came to a close last month. Fazzaco reports that iS Prime (formerly IS Prime), an institutional liquidity provider, and ThinkMarkets, a broker of retail forex and CFDs, settled out of court on May 9.
What's the story behind this lawsuit? How do the two parties differ in their approaches and risks to liquidity, index swaps and internal trading? And how did they manage to resolve their conflict and reach an agreement? Fazzaco has previously published a series of articles in 2022 that shed light on the origins and developments of this case. In this article, we will examine this showdown over liquidity, index swaps and internal trading from multiple angles, and discuss its implications for the forex industry.
In early June, Fazzaco covered the story that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) accused Binance and its founder Zhao Changpeng of secretly allowing high-value U.S. customers to continue trading on the platform despite a ban. The day after Binance was targeted by the SEC, Coinbase also faced SEC charges, alleging that it operated illegally without first registering with the regulator.
Earlier this year, crypto lending platform Nexo was also sued by the SEC and agreed to pay a $45 million fine to the SEC to settle the case, while also ceasing to offer unregistered crypto products to U.S. investors. The SEC's recent moves against the crypto community signal a tightening of regulation of cryptocurrencies. But can the regulator's actions deter the community itself? Will it affect the enthusiasm of crypto institutions to cooperate? Is the SEC using stricter crypto regulation to turn the community into its "cash cow"?
3. Binance Seeks to Withdraw Cypriot Unit's Crypto Service Provider Registration
Cryptocurrency exchange Binance said it asked for its Cyprus unit's registration as a crypto service provider to be rescinded so it can focus on meeting the requirements of the European Union's Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA) legislation.
The move comes just days after the world's largest crypto exchange was sued by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for, among other allegations, operating without registration and offering unregistered securities.
4. ActivTrades Brings in £50.2M Turnover for 2022, up 50%
ActivTrades, the award-winning, multi-asset global forex broker, has generaged turnover of £50.2 million for the full year of 2022, an increase of 50% from 2021’s £33.4 million. For the second half of the year, however, the revenues dropped to £18 million, 43% lower over H1 2022.
During 2022, the profit came in at £16.3 million, compared to £3.4 million in 2021. Operating profit surged to £18.8 million from the prior year's 4.1 million, with gross profit up 52.8% to £47.2 million.
5. ThinkMarkets Releases Copy Trading App, ThinkCopy
The multi-asset online brokerage ThinkMarkets announced recently the introduction of its own copy trading platform, ThinkCopy, which will allow clients to access thousands of experienced traders, and set auto-copy orders.
This move comes after ThinkMarkets' entering a "proposed business combination transaction" with Canada-based special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) FG Acquisition Corp, for the purpose of going public on the Toronto Stock Exchange. And the merged deal is expected to complete in July 2023.
6. Admirals Appoints Daniel Skowronski as Chief Revenue Officer
Admirals Group SA (Admirals), an Estonia based Retail FX and CFDs broker, has named Daniel Skowronski as its new Chief Revenue Officer (CRO).
In his new role, Skowronski will be responsible for overseeing all sales, clients service and partnership directions within the organization. He will also focus on developing effective regional strategies, managing sales channels, and identifying lucrative market opportunities, further driving revenue growth and maximizing profitability of the broker.
7. Multi-Asset Prime Brokerage Invast Global Rebrands as 26 Degrees
The Sydney-based leading multi-asset broker Invast Global announced today the rebranding of its prime brokerage operation into 26 Degrees Global Markets (26 Degrees), repositioning itself to significantly grow its market share over the next five years in the US$20 billion prime services industry.
As for the meaning of the new name, the company explained that 26 Degrees refers to the 26th degree latitude which runs parallel across the widest breadth of Australia dividing it from North to South. The latitude crosses the Indian Ocean to meet the Cradle of Humanity in South Africa, where humankind evolved.
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