ICM MENA Promotes Firas Bechwaty To Head Of Business Development

ICM MENA has promoted Firas Bechwaty to Head of Business Development. He joined in July 2022 as Business Development Executive and became Business Development Manager in August 2024. He previously worked in account management for over five years. Shoaib Abedi, Founder and Chairman, ICM MENA, commented on the promotion.

Weekly industry updates and views from Integral, Sunday 01 November, 2026

Americans vote on November 3 for all 435 seats in the House of Representatives and a third of the Senate. The presidency is not on the ballot, which means any new Congress will still need the President's signature to turn bills into law. Markets care about the midterms less for the laws that follow and more for what changes in oversight, budgets and the regulatory mood of Washington.

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission has said it is not currently convinced that prediction markets for retail clients are in the public interest. ASIC Chair Sarah Court said prediction market contracts have all the features of a bet, likening them to binary options, which are banned for retail clients.

Binance has confirmed a security incident with an estimated total impact of around $6.3 billion, linked by its initial investigation to a compromised DevOps engineer's laptop. Around $3 billion has been frozen on-chain, and the exchange says it will cover all losses from its SAFU fund and company funds.

US crypto exchange Coinbase has reported net income of $719 million for the third quarter of 2026, up 66% from $432.6 million a year earlier. Prediction markets passed $200 million in annualised revenue, and paid Coinbase One subscribers reached an all-time high.

Webull Securities Co., Ltd., the Japanese subsidiary of Webull Corporation, has started handling US Treasury bonds, giving customers access to about 20,000 bonds as of 30 October 2026. The service lets users trade market-traded bonds like stocks, with real-time prices and yields, from $100.

Intercontinental Exchange and Trade[XYZ] have agreed to bring Trade[XYZ]’s perpetual markets onshore in the US through a new regulated market and clearing structure for round-the-clock retail trading built on Hyperliquid, operated separately from ICE’s institutional futures franchise, subject to regulatory approvals.

The Utah Attorney General's Office has filed 14 criminal charges against KalshiEX, LLC, the operator of US prediction market Kalshi, in a case that names co-founders Tarek Mansour, Chief Executive Officer, and Luana Lopes Lara, Chief Operating Officer, as co-defendants.

US blockchain payments company Ripple and US crypto exchange Coinbase have partnered to make Ripple's US dollar stablecoin, Ripple USD (RLUSD), available across Coinbase's platforms