In the wake of China’s ICO ban, what befalls the planet of cryptocurrencies?
The largest event in the cryptocurrency world recently was the declaration of the Chinese authorities to power down the exchanges where cryptocurrencies are traded. Consequently, BTCChina, one of the largest bitcoin exchanges in China, said so it would be ceasing trading activities by the finish of September. This news catalysed a sharp sell-off that left bitcoin (and other currencies such as for instance Etherium) plummeting approximately 30% below the record highs that have been reached earlier this month.
So, the cryptocurrency rollercoaster continues. With bitcoin having increases that surpass quadrupled values from December 2016 to September 2017, some analysts predict so it can cryptocurrencies can recover from the recent falls. Josh Mahoney, a market analyst at IG comments that cryptocurrencies’ “past experience tells us that [they] will more than likely brush these latest challenges aside” ;.
However, these sentiments don’t come without opposition. Mr Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase, remarked that bitcoin “isn’t going to work” and so it “is really a fraud… worse than tulip bulbs (in mention of the the Dutch ‘tulip mania’ of the 17th century, recognised while the world’s first speculative bubble)… that’ll blow up” ;.He visits the extent of saying that he would fire employees who have been stupid enough to trade in bitcoin.
Speculation aside, what is actually going on? Since China’s ICO ban, other world-leading economies are having a fresh explore the way the cryptocurrency world should/ can be regulated in their regions. Rather than banning ICOs, other countries still recognise the technological benefits of crypto-technology, and are looking at controlling industry without completely stifling the growth of the currencies. The big issue for these economies is to figure out how to achieve this, as the alternative nature of the cryptocurrencies do not allow them to be classified beneath the policies of traditional investment assets.
Several of those countries include Japan, Singapore and the US. These economies seek to determine accounting standards for cryptocurrencies, mainly in order to handle money laundering and fraud, which have been rendered more elusive due to the crypto-technology. Yet, most regulators do recognise that there seems to be no real benefit to fully banning cryptocurrencies due to the economic flows they carry along. Also, probably because it’s practically impossible to power down the crypto-world for so long as the internet exists. Regulators can just only give attention to areas where they may manage to exercise some control, which seems to be where cryptocurrencies meet fiat currencies (i.e. the cryptocurrency exchanges).
While cryptocurrencies seem ahead under more scrutiny as time progresses, such events do benefit some countries like Hong Kong. Considering that the Chinese ICO ban, many CashTab Ecash founders of cryptocurrency projects have now been driven from the mainland to the city. Aurelian Menant, CEO of Gatecoin, said that the company received “a large number of inquiries from blockchain project founders based in the mainland” and that there’s been an observable surge in the number of Chinese clients registering on the platform.
Looking slightly further, companies like Nvidia have expressed positivity from the event. They claim this ICO ban is only going to fuel their GPU sales, while the ban will more than likely boost the demand for cryptocurrency-related GPUs. With the ban, the only way to acquire cryptocurrencies mined with GPUs is to mine them with computing power. As such, individuals looking to acquire cryptocurrencies in China will have to acquire more computing power, rather than making straight purchases via exchanges. Basically, Nvidia’s sentiments is this isn’t a downhill spiral for cryptocurrencies; in reality, other industries will be given a boost as well.