Aarti Aunty

Cryptocurrency’ Rocky Highway: China’s ICO Exclude

In the wake of China’s ICO ban, what befalls the planet of cryptocurrencies?

The greatest event in the cryptocurrency world recently was the declaration of the Chinese authorities to turn off the exchanges which cryptocurrencies are traded. As a result, BTCChina, one of the largest bitcoin exchanges in China, said so it will be ceasing trading activities by the finish of September. This news catalysed a sharp sell-off that left bitcoin (and other currencies such as Etherium) plummeting approximately 30% below the record highs that were 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 reference to the Dutch ‘tulip mania’ of the 17th century, recognised because the world’s first speculative bubble)… that will blow up” ;.He visits the extent of saying he would fire employees who have been stupid enough to trade in bitcoin.

Speculation aside, what’s actually going on? Since China’s ICO ban, other world-leading economies are taking a fresh explore the way the cryptocurrency world should/ could be regulated within their regions. Rather than banning ICOs, other countries still recognise the technological benefits of crypto-technology, and are looking at controlling the marketplace without completely stifling the growth of the currencies. CashTab The big problem for these economies would be to work out how to achieve this, as the choice nature of the cryptocurrencies don’t allow them to be classified beneath the policies of traditional investment assets.

Some of those countries include Japan, Singapore and the US. These economies seek to establish accounting standards for cryptocurrencies, mainly to be able to handle money laundering and fraud, that have been rendered more elusive because of the crypto-technology. Yet, most regulators do recognise that there appears to be no real benefit to totally banning cryptocurrencies because of the economic flows that they carry along. Also, probably because it’s practically impossible to turn off the crypto-world for provided that the internet exists. Regulators can just only give attention to areas where they might have the ability to exercise some control, which appears to be where cryptocurrencies meet fiat currencies (i.e. the cryptocurrency exchanges).

While cryptocurrencies seem to come under more scrutiny as time progresses, such events do benefit some countries like Hong Kong. Considering that the Chinese ICO ban, many founders of cryptocurrency projects have already been driven from the mainland to the city. Aurelian Menant, CEO of Gatecoin, stated 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 amount of Chinese clients registering on the platform.

Looking slightly further, companies like Nvidia have expressed positivity from the event. They claim that ICO ban will only fuel their GPU sales, because the ban will more than likely increase the demand for cryptocurrency-related GPUs. With the ban, the only path to acquire cryptocurrencies mined with GPUs would be to mine them with computing power. As a result, individuals looking to acquire cryptocurrencies in China will have to acquire more computing power, instead of making straight purchases via exchanges. Essentially, Nvidia’s sentiments is that isn’t a downhill spiral for cryptocurrencies; actually, other industries will be given a boost as well.