Binary Options & Crypto – Brokers And Their Battles

FinTelegram has reported intensively about the non-licensed broker platform XtraderFX and the binary options industry in the last weeks. We have reported on the many warnings from various financial market regulators such as UK FCA as well as the many complaints from investors in the EFRI campaign to recover lost investor funds at XtraderFX, SafeMarkets, and Golden Markets.

Playing Tough

Recently, we have been able to discuss with the people behind XtraderFX and the other trading schemes we have been exposed. As reported recently, those operators explained that the issues with the investors are not an attempt to defraud them but are either misunderstandings or mistakes. Hence, they agreed to look at every single EFRI complaint and do their best to find solutions for disappointed or defrauded investors. We very much appreciate that in the very best interest of investors.

In the course of these discussions, we furthermore discovered that there are fierce battles for market shares and customers within the online broker scene. This fights are conucted with heavy artillery such as DDOS attacks.

The conversion of the domain from XtraderFX.com and XtraderFX.net to XTrader-FX.com allegedly has its causes in the permanent attacks against XtraderFX. In addition, fake sites such as xfx.report are being set up, which apparently serve to mislead investors. The guys of XtraderFX have informed us that there will be an investigation concerning these incidents. We would be kept informed of the results of this investigation. Due to the lack of further data, we cannot estimate to what extent these attacks on XtraderFX and the alleged fake sites contributed to the fact that customer money was not paid out. We expect to receive further information on this in the near future.

The Days After

The background to this skirmish in the broker scene may also be directly related to the prohibition of binary options by Israel, the EU, and the North American countries. This regulatory move cut off the huge binary options industry with its many boiler rooms, software developers and marketing companies from further revenue and income. New business models such as cryptocurrencies are being sought, but these are also currently in the so-called crypto winter. In addition, the supervisory authorities have already issued restrictive regulations in this respect. The U.S. Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) sees most cryptographic tokens as securities. Brokers, therefore, need the appropriate licenses and permits.

Arrests and Indictments

In addition to regulatory measures and their enforcement actions, the industry of binary options and illegal brokers is also shakened by numerous arrests and indictments. Above all, the U.S. authorities are taking a tough stand against the companies and people in this sector.

The Israeli Lee ELBAZ and three employees of the Israeli binary options company YUKOM COMMUNICATIONS were recently charged (FinTelegram article here). The U.S. prosecutors claim that the company and the acting persons have cheated tens of millions of out of investors with their binary options platforms BinaryBook and BigOptions. In this respect, part of the fight in the scene will probably also be due to this. The mutual recriminations of the actors have already led to numerous civil and criminal actions. Many of them are known to FinTelegram.

We will report on the progress of the negotiations of the EFRI campaign with the operators of the broker sites on compensation and of course on the further development of the fights in this area.

Report Illegal Broker Activities

Illegally operating broker schemes and their boiler rooms are part of fast-growing global cybercrime activities. Millions of investors are defrauded by those broker sites losing billions of euros every year. Hence, it is important to warn investors of such illicit sites. If you are a victim of an illegally operating broker site such as Tradeinvest90, Option888, XMarkets, XTraderFX, GToptions, StoxMarket, Bluetrading, FXTrade777, or KayaFX please file your claim and report activities via our whistleblower system: