Digital Digest April

First in our list of breaking news, Ayden has been selected by Amazon Japan to optimize the checkout experience of its customers, the company confirmed yesterday. According to the details shared by Ayden, the fintech firm is now processing payments for Amazon Japan.?

Payment data and checkout experience has played a major role in the adoption of e-commerce in the Japanese market during the last few years. Ayden noted that Amazon Japan’s recent selection of its payment platform will enable the company to offer efficient payment solutions to its clients shopping from Japan or overseas.

"Japan's digital sector has seen accelerated growth in the past two years. Tapping into Ayden's platform allows Amazon Japan to offer richer customer experiences with our payment optimization tools and data insights," said Jonathan Epstein, the Country Manager of Japan, Adyen.

In 2021, Ayden received regulatory approval to open a US banking branch. The past 12 months have been instrumental in the company’s global expansion. Earlier this year, Ayden enhanced its presence beyond payments and announced new embedded financial products.

Second one in our list, Binance crypto exchange formed a joint venture (JV) with Gulf Energy Development (Sarath Ratanavadi). Binance will apply for a license to operate as a digital asset exchange platform in Thailand.

A high demand for ?cryptocurrencies ?in Thailand lead to the partnership between Binance and Gulf Energy Development. Additionally, it has been reported that Gulf Energy will invest in BNB (Binance Coin).

Gulf Energy stated in a regulatory filing to the Stock Exchange of Thailand: "The company believes that this multi-level cooperation with Binance, which is the global leader in ?blockchain ?infrastructure technology, is aligned with the company’s target to be the leader in digital infrastructure while providing further opportunities for the company to expand into other digital asset-related initiatives in the future."

Third one in our list, The Cürex Group, a New York City-based institutional foreign exchange ?execution ?services and data analytics company, said on Wednesday that it reached an agreement with Siemens to provide it with advanced pre- and post-trade data analytics through Cürex’s Cipher platform.

According to the press release, Siemens and Cürex have maintained an FX trading relationship since Cürex introduced its FTSE Russell/Cürex FX Benchmarks. In mid-2021, Cürex introduced Cipher. In addition to comprehensive pre- and post-trade analytics, Cipher offers real-time analytics to customers who execute their algo trades within Cürex’s liquidity pool. Cipher’s pre-trade suite includes trade cost estimators, risk transfer price comparisons and streaming volatility analysis, among other features.

Through Cipher’s post-trade TCA, customers can measure relative bank algo performance based on Cürex’s independently derived benchmarks, risk transfer comparison, ?slippage ?and performance against the market’s existing conditions at the time of the client’s trading decision. FX trading performance can be improved by Cipher’s ability to link post-trade outcomes with pre-trade conditions.

“Siemens is a sophisticated and valued client. They have supported our efforts to improve the buy side’s trading outcomes in a marketplace where there is minimal support to achieve such outcomes. Their decision to use Cipher underscores the value of Cipher’s streaming analytical content. Our data drives better insights compared to the alternatives available through other providers. We are grateful for Siemens’ endorsement of our platform and our best execution efforts,” James Singleton, the Chairman and CEO of Cürex, commented.

Fourth list in our list, Stripe, an online payment processing platform, is set to pilot cryptocurrency payouts for select users of Twitter’s content monetization products. The companies made the announcement on Friday, according to Reuters.

Ticketed Spaces users and Super Follows users will be able to receive their earnings from Twitter in USD coin (USDC). A year ago, Twitter introduced monetization features in an effort to become more of a part of the 'creator economy' and increase revenue.

In addition to holding their earnings in crypto wallets on the Polygon network, a crypto infrastructure firm on the Ethereum blockchain, users of crypto ?payments ?can exchange them for other currencies.

According to Stripe, crypto payments will be routed through Stripe Connect, which will also handle know-your-customer requirements.

Stripe is now supporting crypto payments to online businesses, again. Stripe supports ?cryptocurrencies ?such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana and USD Coin.

After ditching bitcoin in 2018, Stripe announced a new partnership with FTX, FTX US, Nifty Gateway, Just Mining and Blockchain.com. John Collison, the Co-Founder and President of Stripe made the announcement on Twitter.

And the final one, Twitter (NYSE: TWTR) announced on Monday that it has entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by an entity wholly owned by Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk for $54.20 per share in cash in a transaction valued at approximately $44 billion. Upon completion of the transaction, Twitter will become a privately held company.

As part of the proposed transaction, Twitter stockholders will receive $54.20 in cash for every share of Twitter common stock they own. Twitter’s closing stock price on April 1, 2022, when Musk disclosed his approximately 9% stake in the company, represented a 38% premium to the purchase price.

“The Twitter Board conducted a thoughtful and comprehensive process to assess Elon’s proposal with a deliberate focus on value, certainty and financing. The proposed transaction will deliver a substantial cash premium, and we believe it is the best path forward for Twitter’s stockholders,” Bret Taylor, Twitter’s Independent Board Chair, commented.

Musk's Reaction on buying Twitter

“Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated. I also want to make Twitter better than ever by enhancing the product with new features, making the algorithms open source to increase trust, defeating the spam bots, and authenticating all humans. Twitter has tremendous potential, I look forward to working with the company and the community of users to unlock it,” Musk stated.

That was it for April Digital Digest, stay with us, comment, like and follow our ScaleTrade page for more fascinating and exciting publications.

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