RAZAN P2P HALAL System, saudi, Riyadh (2026)

24/07/2026

Institutional crypto trading platform LMAX is exploring sale, IPO

LMAX is working with Morgan Stanley and investment bank KBW to assess its options, which could lead to a sale or a public offering.

Institutional crypto trading platform LMAX Group is working with Morgan Stanley (MS) and investment bank KBW, part of Stifel (SF), to evaluate strategic options, according to three people familiar with the matter.

The company is exploring a sale or public listing that could value the business at up to $5 billion, the people said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the discussions are private.

While all options remain on the table, including a sale, S**C merger and IPOs in the U.S. or Europe, a Nasdaq listing is currently the preferred route, one of the people said.

The company is in no rush to go public as crypto markets remain weak, with its core foreign-exchange business providing insulation from the downturn, another person said.

A company spokesperson said LMAX declines to comment on speculation. Morgan Stanley declined to comment. Stifel didn’t respond to a request for comment by publication time.

The London-based firm operates institutional trading venues for foreign exchange and digital assets, providing ex*****on, liquidity and market infrastructure to banks, brokers, hedge funds and asset managers. Regulated by the U.K.'s Financial Conduct Authority, it is known for its agency ex*****on model, transparent order books and low-latency trading infrastructure.

Connecting crypto to TradFi
Deal activity across the crypto sector has accelerated this year as exchanges, fintech companies and market infrastructure firms seek to strengthen their digital asset offerings and capture rising institutional demand.

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Recent transactions include Kraken parent Payward’s agreement to acquire derivatives platform Bitnomial, as well as Bullish, the owner of CoinDesk, announcing a $4.2 billion purchase of Equiniti to expand into tokenization and transfer agency services.

Industry analysts expect further consolidation as firms compete to build out institutional-grade capabilities across custody, settlement, tokenization and stablecoin infrastructure.

In July 2021, LMAX announced that J.C. Flowers, a global financial services-focused private equity firm, would acquire a 30% stake in the company for $300 million, valuing the group at approximately $1 billion. The investment was designed to support LMAX’s continued expansion across institutional FX and cryptocurrency markets.

LMAX has expanded over the past year as it sought to position itself as a bridge between traditional finance and crypto markets.

In February, it unveiled a 24/7 multi-asset exchange allowing institutions to trade tokenized and traditional assets around the clock, broadening its business beyond spot crypto trading. The platform was designed to support foreign exchange, digital assets, commodities and tokenized securities.

That move followed January’s $150 million strategic investment from Ripple, which was intended to help expand institutional adoption of Ripple’s RLUSD stablecoin through LMAX’s trading and settlement network.

The partnership underscored LMAX’s growing role in institutional crypto market structure, particularly among firms seeking regulated venues and deeper liquidity pools outside retail-focused exchanges.

The company has benefited from rising institutional participation in crypto markets following the approval of spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in the U.S. and renewed interest from banks and asset managers seeking digital asset exposure.

11/07/2026

U.S. government digital dollar set to be banned tonight under housing law's CBDC limit

Despite President Donald Trump's refusal to sign Congress' bipartisan housing bill, it's set to go into effect at midnight, and its temporary CBDC ban along with it.

The crypto industry's long animosity toward the idea of a U.S. central bank digital currency (CBDC) will be rewarded with a ban under the housing bill set to pass into law in the first moment of Saturday.

For four years, the Federal Reserve won't be permitted to issue its own digital dollar, which Republican lawmakers have held up as a threat of potential overreaching government surveillance, though there hasn't yet been a serious effort in the U.S. to institute one. The restriction was part of Congress' bipartisan housing-affordability bill that President Donald Trump refused to sign into law.

"I will not sign the Housing Bill, which has been fully approved by Congress and sent to the White House, in PROTEST over the fact that the United States Senate is not capable of passing THE SAVE AMERICA ACT," the president wrote in a Friday post on his Truth Social website.

The U.S. Constitution, however, says that once the president is given a congressionally approved bill, it becomes law after a 10-day window whether he signs it or not. Trump hasn't chosen to formally veto the bill, so it's now set up for a midnight passage.

The CBDC limit expires at the end of 2030, though there was little chance that a Fed digital currency would have been executed by then. There's been limited appetite at the central bank, where its previous leadership — even before the arrival of Trump's newest Fed chair, Kevin Warsh — had long said that such an effort would require backing from the White House and congressional authorization. There's never been wide support for a CBDC in Congress.

But the idea — strongly opposed by the crypto industry for its potential to compete with privately issued stablecoins — has been pursued in other jurisdictions, such as Europe and China, and it became a popular political target for U.S. politicians. So Republicans managed to slip it into the unrelated housing legislation, after previously trying to include it in a range of bills including the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

Despite the overall housing bill's popularity, Trump took an unexpected, last-minute stand against signing it, for which he'd previously scheduled a ceremony and had a stage erected. He declared that he wouldn't sign anything until lawmakers approved a bill that would impose new proof-of-citizenship and identity checks on voters — an effort without sufficient current support to pass in Congress.

The president has argued that the absence of such a law will cost Republicans the midterm congressional elections, in which Democrats are currently favored to retake the majority in the House of Representatives.

Trump's protest against any congressional activity that strays from his favored effort has raised questions about whether a completed Digital Asset Market Clarity Act could face a similar situation, if Congress manages to pass it this summer.

04/07/2026

XRP climbs 8% as record holder losses signal better risk-reward for buyers

The token's 30-day and 365-day MVRV, a measure of how far holders are underwater, sit near -45% and -47%, lows Santiment says XRP has never reached before. Some traders read stretched losses as a contrarian signal.

XRP holders are underwater by more, on average, than they have ever been, according to onchain data that some traders treat as a contrarian floor signal.

The reading comes from MVRV, or market value to realized value, a ratio that compares XRP's price with the average price at which its supply last moved.

When it sits below zero, the typical holder is carrying a loss. XRP's 30-day MVRV is around -45% and its 365-day version around -47%, so both recent buyers and those who have held for a year are deep in the red.

Combined, the two are at their lowest in XRP's history, analytics firm Santiment said in a Friday post.

That describes a capitulation, the phase where holders sit on steep unrealized losses and weaker hands sell out to those willing to absorb the coins. Santiment is careful to call this a risk-reward point, instead of a price call.

"The best setups often appear when the crowd is feeling maximum pain," the firm wrote, stating that so much downside has already been taken on that adding here carries less risk than usual, while noting price can still fall further if the broader market weakens.

XRP has climbed even as that reading stays depressed. The token is up about 8% over seven days to around $1.14, per CoinDesk data, among the week's stronger majors.

It fits a pattern onchain analysts have flagged lately, with large bitcoin wallets accumulating through record ETF outflows, the capitulation-and-absorption setup that tends to form near cycle lows rather than tops.

None of that signals a confirmed bottom, however. MVRV measures how washed out positioning is, not when it turns, and stretched losses can stay stretched while a market grinds sideways or lower.

What the gauge shows is that the selling pressure from underwater holders is largely spent, and traders should keep track of whether buyers continue to step

29/06/2026

Tom Lee blames crypto weakness on quarter-end 'window dressing' as Bitmine adds another $43 million of ETH

Bitmine made its smallest purchase since early May as Lee pointed to investors cutting losses before the start of the second half of the year.

itmine Immersion Technologies (BMNR), the largest Ethereum treasury company, bought 27,084 ether (ETH) last week, extending its accumulation streak despite another slide in crypto prices.

The purchase, worth roughly $43 million based on ETH's current price of around $1,580, lifted Bitmine's holdings to 5.7 million ETH, according to a Monday company update. The stash is worth about $8.9 billion and represents roughly 4.7% of Ethereum's circulating supply, nearing the firm's 5% goal.

The company also held 206 bitcoin, $555 million in cash and marketable securities and stakes in Beast Industries and Eightco Holdings, bringing total crypto, cash and investment holdings to $9.8 billion.

The latest acquisition was the smallest purchase since early May, down from 52,203 ETH the previous week and well below the 126,971 ETH batch earlier this month, suggesting the company is dialing back its buying pace after months of aggressive accumulation. Bitmine nevertheless remains one of the few large digital asset treasury firms still consistently adding to its crypto holdings while many peers have paused purchases amid the market downturn.

Chairman Thomas "Tom" Lee pointed to quarter-end rebalancing behind the latest bout of weakness in crypto markets with investors cutting their losses as we enter the second-half of the year.

"This past week was a challenging one for crypto investors as ETH fell by 8%, even as Ethereum witnessed notable positive developments such as the creation of Ethlabs, and even the Bank of England softened its stance around stablecoins," Lee said in a statement. Bitmine is one of the key backers of Ethlabs, a new Ethereum research organization after a period of turmoil and layoffs at the Ethereum Foundation.

"We are nearing quarter-end for June, and it is not surprising to see 'window dressing' leading to investors reducing their holdings in assets which have fallen in the past 3 months," Lee said.

As it stands, bitcoin and ether are set to book their third consecutive quarterly losses, something that hasn't happened with bitcoin since 2022 and a first for ether since 2019. BTC is down 12% in 2026 Q2 and ETH 25% lower, CoinGlass data shows.

23/06/2026

Ethereum Foundation cuts 20% of staff amid leadership exodus

The reduction follows a period of significant upheaval at the organization’s leadership level.

The Ethereum Foundation is cutting roughly 20% of its workforce, eliminating 54 positions as part of a broad restructuring that comes amid sustained senior leadership turnover and growing fragmentation across the wider Ethereum ecosystem.

The layoffs, announced Tuesday in a blog post, conclude a months-long internal reorganization tied to the implementation of the Foundation’s updated mandate and treasury policy. The EF said the reduction leaves it “leaner and more focused,” with a structure aligned around what it described as the “critical tasks” needed to support Ethereum’s long-term development.

The reduction follows a period of significant upheaval at the organization’s leadership level. Co-executive director Hsiao-Wei Wang stepped down earlier this month, following the prior departure of co-executive director Tomasz Stańczak. Board member Bastian Aue has since assumed expanded responsibilities overseeing the transition and day-to-day operations.

In total, roughly nine senior figures have left or transitioned out of the Ethereum Foundation over the past six months, fueling scrutiny of the organization’s governance model and performance as Ethereum faces intensifying competition from rival blockchain ecosystems.

While the EF shrinks, a separate ecosystem effort backed by some of Ethereum’s largest corporate holders is expanding.

On Monday, BitMine Immersion Technologies and SharpLink Gaming, two of the largest publicly traded Ethereum treasury companies, alongside Ethereum co-founder Joseph Lubin, announced support for ETHLabs, a new non-profit research and development initiative aimed at accelerating Ethereum’s technical roadmap and institutional adoption.

As part of the restructuring, the EF has grouped its work into five clusters, including a dedicated institutional layer focused on enterprise engagement, financial infrastructure, and policy coordination.

A representative for the Ethereum Foundation did not respond to a request for comment by publication time.

14/06/2026

Crypto should adopt the best of centralization, says LMAX CEO

As digital assets mature the industry should borrow more from traditional market infrastructure, especially credit, clearing and collateral systems, David Mercer argues.

For years, crypto's ideological center of gravity has been pulled toward decentralization.

David Mercer, CEO of institutional trading venue operator LMAX Group, however says digital assets may need more centralization if the industry hopes to achieve its next phase of growth.

"Centralization solves the coordination problem," Mercer told CoinDesk in an interview. "Buyers and sellers get the best prices by participating in a single central market."

History demonstrates that even the industry's most decentralized experiments eventually gravitate toward centralized points of coordination, he added.

From early peer-to-peer marketplaces to decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols that have intervened during crises, market participants consistently rely on trusted venues, governance structures and settlement mechanisms when volatility strikes.

"Crypto needs to learn from hundreds of years of organized capital markets," he says.

LMAX Group is a London-based financial technology company that runs institutional trading venues for foreign exchange and digital assets. Its platforms provide banks, funds, brokers and other professional traders with regulated exchange-style ex*****on, streaming liquidity and crypto spot trading and custody services through LMAX Exchange and LMAX Digital. The group is also pushing into unified FX, crypto and stablecoin infrastructure with Omnia Exchange.

TradFi's missing layer
LMAX, whose core foreign exchange business recently recorded its strongest first quarter on record with roughly $50 billion in average daily volume, serves many of the world's largest banks, asset managers and trading firms.

Those markets function because trading activity sits atop a vast network of credit relationships, clearing brokers and prime brokerage arrangements, Mercer says.

"That's what the world's economies and capital markets are built on," he added.

When LMAX launched institutional crypto venue LMAX Digital in 2018, Mercer expected similar infrastructure would quickly emerge in digital assets. Eight years later, he believes its absence remains one of the industry's biggest constraints.

Mercer remains an enthusiastic supporter of blockchain technology, citing instantaneous settlement amd transparent onchain records. But while atomic settlement and delivery-versus-payment transactions are valuable, he argues they are not sufficient for global capital markets.

"The world today is built on leverage and credit, and it will remain so," Mercer says.

The collateral problem
A central challenge is the inability to move collateral efficiently between traditional and digital financial systems.

Today's institutions often operate within separate regulatory and operational environments, with traditional assets, digital assets and stablecoins trapped inside distinct "walled gardens." Collateral cannot move freely between them, reducing capital efficiency and limiting participation.

Market volatility during the first quarter highlighted the issue, Mercer said, as investors rotated between equities, gold and bitcoin in response to macroeconomic uncertainty.

"If you've pre-positioned fiat at a centralized exchange, you can't necessarily deploy that collateral elsewhere when opportunities arise," he said.

"Digital money, whether it's stablecoins or tokenized assets, will ultimately enable much more efficient collateral management."

Achieving that future will require the same types of credit mechanisms that underpin traditional markets today.

Institutions are preparing
In conversations with asset managers this year, only around 20% said they expected to begin trading digital assets directly in the near term, according to Mercer. More than 40%, however, said they were actively studying onchain payments, settlements, collateral management and liquidity management.

Meanwhile, roughly 60% indicated they expect to offer digital asset-related services, while 91% said they are already engaging with stablecoins in some capacity.

"The real inflection point for digital assets won’t be bitcoin's price," he says. "It will be the emergence of a highly efficient collateral layer."

Custody remains another critical hurdle. About three-quarters of institutions Mercer speaks with continue to view secure custody infrastructure as a prerequisite before deploying significant capital.

The challenge is how digital assets become fully interoperable with existing financial systems.

"Ultimately it's about making collateral fungible," Mercer says. "If we get that right, you'll see greater efficiency across all markets, not just digital assets."

For Mercer, the end state is increasingly clear: traditional finance and digital assets converging into a single financial ecosystem, with tokenized money, interoperable collateral and institutional-grade credit infrastructure operating across both worlds.

"The future of capital markets is a fusion of TradFi and digital assets," he says.

08/06/2026

Sam Bankman-Fried officially asks Trump for a presidential pardon

The fallen crypto mogul serving a 25-year sentence filed a clemency petition, betting on Donald Trump's history of crypto pardons even though the president had told him not to count on one.

Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder and former CEO of collapsed crypto exchange FTX, formally sought a presidential pardon from President Donald Trump while serving a 25-year prison sentence for fraud and conspiracy.

The clemency application appeared Monday in records maintained by the U.S. Department of Justice's Office of the Pardon Attorney. The case is listed as pending, meaning a clemency petition has been opened and is under review. The office said details of ongoing reviews are not publicly disclosed.

The former crypto executive, known by his initials SBF, was convicted in 2023 for orchestrating the fraud and conspiracy scheme that ultimately undid FTX, once one of the world's largest cryptocurrency exchanges.

The company collapsed in November 2022 after CoinDesk reported on balance sheet concerns tied to affiliated trading firm Alameda Research, exposing an $8 billion hole in FTX's accounts and triggering a run on customer deposits.

Bankman-Fried confirmed his interest in clemency during a recent interview with FOX Business.

"I assume that you would want a pardon from the White House?" FOX Business correspondent Susan Li asked him by phone. "Absolutely," Bankman-Fried responded. "It would be obviously, you know, ultimately up to the president, not up to me."

He declined to say whether members of his family were lobbying the administration on his behalf. SBF’s parents, Stanford Law School professors Joseph Bankman and Barbara Fried, have previously reached out to individuals in Trump's orbit to explore a possible presidential pardon for their son. It's not clear whether any direct discussions with White House officials took place.

The pardon request follows months of public statements from Bankman-Fried that have aligned with Trump's positions. Writing through intermediaries using prison-approved communications, he has praised the president's decision to launch strikes against Iran, argued that Trump helped "save" the Securities and Exchange Commission by replacing former Chair Gary Gensler with Paul Atkins and highlighted lower gasoline prices during Trump's tenure.

He also appears to be following a playbook he wrote to try and ingratiate himself with Republicans after being seen as a Democratic mega-donor during the 2020 election. This playbook included items like appearing on Tucker Carlson's show, something he did last year.

The outreach has drawn attention because Trump has shown a willingness to pardon high-profile defendants, including several figures tied to the crypto industry. Since returning to office, Trump has pardoned Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht, former Binance CEO Changpeng "CZ" Zhao and the co-founders of BitMEX.

Still, Trump's support is far from assured. In a January interview with The New York Times, the president said Bankman-Fried should not count on receiving clemency, grouping him with several other high-profile defendants he did not intend to pardon.

For now, Bankman-Fried remains incarcerated while his appeal efforts and clemency petition move through separate channels.

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