As a busy September closed out and an uncertain October began, here are the news stories that dominated the worlds of forex, fintech and crypto, in this week’s editor’s pick.
TP ICAP in Talks to Buy Dark Pool Operator Liquidnet
On Tuesday, TP ICAP confirmed plans to acquire private trading operator Liquidnet as the world’s largest interdealer broker continues with the ambitious growth plans outlined by its new management earlier this year.
The deal values Liquidnet between $600 million and $700 million and includes a $550 million upfront payment alongside deferred non-contingent payment of $50 million and a further earn-out of up to $100 million that is dependent on the performance of the business following the acquisition.
Read more on the TP ICAP Acquisition Talks here.
AxiTrader Rebrands to Axi, Becomes Manchester City FC Sponsor
In a Finance Magnates exclusive, we revealed the rebrand of Axitrader to Axi as well as a multi-year sponsorship deal with English football giant, Manchester City FC.
The partnership with the football club is the broker’s first major sports sponsorship deal.
Commenting on this, Axi’s chief commercial officer, Louis Cooper said: “As we started looking into relaunching our brand, we felt there were lots of similarities with how the world’s leading football clubs are focused around gaining that competitive edge and Manchester City personified that.”
Read more on the Axi rebrand and Man city sponsorship deal here.
KuCoin: User Funds Will Be ‘Covered Completely’ after Friday’s $150M+ Hack
KuCoin, a digital asset exchange based in Singapore, announced that at least $150 million worth of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency tokens had been hacked.
Finance Magnates delved deep and broke down exactly what happened and what’s next for KuCoin
Read more on the KuCoin hack here.
DeFi Summer is Over: As Token Prices Drop, Get Ready for DeFi Fall–Literally
After a month of downward price movements across the board, it seems like the DeFi market is officially in the midst of an extended cooldown. The downfall in token prices represents a massive turnaround from the DeFi market trends seen earlier in the year.
In a Finance Magnates analysis, we discussed what exactly could be causing the cooldown. With expert insights from Deniz Omer, head of ecosystem growth at Kyber Network, Waseem J. Mamlouk, Financial Advisor at Nimbus Platform, Changpeng Zhao, CEO of Binance and Tom Albright, CEO of Bittrex Global, no stone was left unturned in analyzing DeFi’s position now and in the future.
Read more on the DeFi analysis here.
Trump Contracts COVID, BitMEX Founders Indicted: A Chaotic Day for Bitcoin
After a fairly uneventful news week, Friday brought a few developments that were rather, shall we say, unexpected for the world of Bitcoin.
United States President Donald Trump announced on Twitter that he and First Lady Melania Trump had tested positive for COVID-19, a plot twist that has sent shudders down into the global economy.
Just hours before, it was reported that US authorities brought criminal charges against the owners of one of the world’s biggest cryptocurrency trading exchanges, BitMEX, accusing them of allowing the Hong Kong-based company to launder money and engage in other illegal transactions.
Together, these two stories acted as a 1-2-punch that sank crypto prices, which were down across the board at press time: BTC had dropped 3.4% in 24 hours, ETH was down 5.9%, XRP -3.61%, BCH -4.76%, and BNB -7.86%.
Read more on the Bitcoin drop and what’s next for Bitcoin here.
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