A necessary evil
The Chinese government resolved to declare Initial Coin Offerings (ICO) ilegal for its citizens. The massive flow of money being poured into the crypto-market and blockchain-tech-startups set off the alarms of the authorities, the People's Bank of China said that almost 90% of these funds where coming from money laundry or fraud. It was too much chaos for a nation that have been very strict in order to achieve its current leading position.
The announcement shook up the market, everyone was in panic and fear like "China has left the group." Everyone was pulling back from everything that was linked to Chinese money. Yesterday's numbers were all in red, with specially big losers like NEO. I think deep down we all saw something like this coming. It is just too easy at the moment, almost $170 billions in hands of the crypto fever, there are so many new crazy ICOs in such a short period, rising exorbitant amounts of money for companies that sometimes do not even have a clear white-paper.
Even though that, it was not a rational move, not every coin or token related to China necessarily dropped and not everything that dropped was really related to ICOs. Some people were nervous, and some others were wishing for this. About $20 billion was taken out from the crypto currency world, at the peak of Bitcoin almost reaching $5000, and all other hot token rising everyday. It was the perfect move for whoever played this hand, they sold high, then the perfect chaos, make all the numbers go dow, and then, shopping time!
This is just a wake up call
Today, September 5, the Chinese government has brought another announcement but this time clearing their intentions: this is not the end. The Economic Daily, a governmental agency, published an article titled "China's block chain industry expected to walk in the fore front of the world", making clear that the intentions are not to leave the block chain technology research and the value that has been creating around it in their country, their vision acknowledge this and become the absolute leaders on it, but under control, order comes for progress. This strict attitude is not new to the Chinese policy makers, they have banned the Bitcoin in the past, and everything that seems to attempt to take the control over their economy out of their hands.
More than a fatality this is a warning sign. Easy mode has ended, at least for Chinese people, but something is for sure ICOs are just going to be more overwatch from now on, everywhere, almost every rich country is talking about it. I'm not sure if regulations are the answer but the market needed a time to see where it is going. I believe this kind of "crises" are the ones that make things go bigger and stronger.
Today's numbers are not so bad, some green lights started to appear, and the opportunity for some shoppers apparently might give some rewards sooner than expected. The expectation for Bitcoin is to keep rising, yes China is an important player but we can see that is just regulations, so in the end, things are just the some, we just lived a very profitable weekend for some, and a very difficult one for others.
Did you buy or sell over the weekend and the panic day? Please share your thoughts in the comments. Thank you for reading.
Cheers! - 176 -
