EU Starts Monitoring Cryptocurrency, OANDA Price Revealed: Best of the Week

French brokerage sued for refusing to give customer his winnings

Harouna Traore, an amateur trader from France, made €10 million trading with a company called Valbury Capital. The company has refused to pay.

Time to buy the dip?

Traore set up a demo account with the company and only realised that the account was actually live after making a huge loss. At this point he doubled down and got into profit, but the company claimed breach of contract and deleted his trading information.

Analysis: gaming and blockchain

People have been using virtual money in video games for years; this is just one reason why blockchain technology and the $108 billion-dollar gaming industry are such natural partners; gamers already know how it works. On the other hand, there still aren’t many blockchain-based video games – Decentraland is one of the few examples, a game which auctioned off virtual land in an ICO.

Like with other industries, blockchain technology gives people the opportunity to avoid paying middlemen and own their own assets – in this case, avatars – and it has other applications too. Click here to read more.

Exclusive interview with Bitfinex’ed 

The anonymous nemesis of major cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex calls himself a justice warrior, alerting the world to a criminal organisation. There are those who believe him, and those who think that the account is run by a group with a financial interest in harming the exchange and Tether, the cryptocurrency which is (arguably) suspiciously closely linked to it.

Before the account briefly disappeared in April, Finance Magnates talked to the individual behind it.

He talked about the CFTC’s investigation into Tether (“I believe them to be at worst counterfeiting US dollars at best facilitating billions of dollars of money laundering”), the limits of self-regulation (“The problem is people do not care about fraud when they think they benefit from it”), and his own motivations for doing what he does.

eToro to trade cryptocurrency from London

Brokerage eToro is setting up an over-the-counter cryptocurrency trading desk in London to cater to hedge funds and institutions.

CEO Yoni Assia said: “I think there is growing institutional demand and interest of public investors to understand whether they can join the party. That is something we definitely see out there. We see more and more public market players and big banks who are interested in this space and feel left out because they’re not allowed to invest in crypto or ICOs.”

Dukascopy offers bank accounts to cryptocurrency companies

Dukascopy is a Swiss foreign exchange bank and brokerage which has been moving into cryptocurrency of late. It will only give banking services to firms that are regulated in the EU, the UK or Switzerland, and will run “rigorous” background checks on them.

Mainstream Swiss banks have not been eager to engage with cryptocurrency companies, so this kind of thing is rare although not unheard of.

EU watchdogs can now monitor cryptocurrency

The European parliament has passed the Fifth Anti-Money Laundering Directive, which affords relevant authorities new powers to monitor cryptocurrency. EU member states will need to comply by January 2020.

Specifically, investigators will be allowed to access information linking virtual currency addresses to their owners. However the law says that the field will remain largely anonymous, and it will examine the option of self-reporting in the future.

Price of OANDA revealed 

Private equity firm CVC Partners Asia Fund purchased 98.5 percent of OANDA, a foreign exchange broker, for $160 million in a joint auction.

Finance Magnates learned that OANDA was valued at $175 million. The price paid demonstrates that OANDA is a far cry from its past dominance. However it is still the largest retail FX platform in Singapore and the second largest in the US.

CEO Vatsa Narasimha will remain in his position.