Broker Updates on Jan 18-24

Vietnam

BitcoinRegulation

1. The President of the European Central Bank (ECB), Christine Lagarde has expressed some concerns about Bitcoin‘s anonymous nature and the cryptocurrency’s troubled past – in her words, it has been used for some “funny business”.

Lagarde has once again called for regulation, following her previous statement on stablecoins. This time the president turns her attention towards Bitcoin – stating the dire need for regulation of the sector. And although some policies have been implemented – brokers that accept Bitcoin deposits generally follow strict Anti-Money Laundering procedures, Lagarde does not see this as enough. She states that “There has to be regulation. This has to be applied and agreed upon at a global level because if there is an escape that escape will be used”.

Crypto Fraud Allegations

2. IQ Option faces lawsuit in India over crypto fraud allegations. The lawsuit demands a permanent ban of the brokerage from operating in India.

CFD Restrictions

3. The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) is going to implement restrictions on the retail contract for difference (CFDs) market. Their impact on the trading market can be huge as the leverage levels will be restricted up to 30:1 from the usual existing offerings of 400:1 on major currency pairs.

Indonesia

Scam Blocking

4. The Commodity Futures Trading Supervisory Agency of the Ministry of Trade Indonesia (Bappebti) has again blocked the Binomo website. Bappebti also blocks other Binomo 'flocks' such as the All forex bonus, Axi Trader, FBS, Cm Trading, and many more. This site is considered a fraudulent investment because it does not have a permit from the government.

Thailand

Suspended Services

5. Bitkub, the largest cryptocurrency exchange in Thailand, has temporarily suspended its services on the desktop platform on Tuesday after receiving a notice from the countrys financial regulator to fix the frequent outage issues.

Crypto Trading Platform

6. The Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET) announced that it is planning to introduce a trading platform for asset-backed digital tokens in the second half of 2021. The exchange completely rejected the possibility of the inclusion of cryptocurrencies because of their risky nature and potential involvement in money laundering activities.

Japan

Transaction Data

7. The table below serves as a monthly transactions summary of retail Over-The-Counter (OTC) currency binary options reported by Financial Futures Association of Japan (FFAJ) members. (Up-to-Date: Jan 18,2021)

Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS)

Financial Prohibition

8. The Central Bank of the Russian Federation, as a financial regulator, prohibited the QIWI and YuMoney payment systems from interacting with financial companies that have non-resident status.

Comon Index

9. The Comon Index (CI), which reflects the average daily profitability of all strategies of the auto-following service Comon.ru, sets a new record at the level of 173.87 points by the end of 2020, and significantly surpassed the Moscow Exchange and S & P500 indices in profitability. In just a year, CI added 34%, being 4 times more profitable than the Moscow Exchange Index and 2 times more than the S&P 500 (8% and 17%, respectively).