China’s ICO Embargo Stumps Cryptocurrencies

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September 6th, 2017
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Initial coin offerings (ICOs) used by startups to raise funds using cryptocurrencies that are traded via the internet were banned this week in China, with South Korea following suit soon, by the looks of it. The USA was the first to make this move back in July, introducing sterner measures against ICOs. This may seem like a trifle and not a big deal, but it is the cryptocurrency industry that is put under a lot of pressure because of this.

Bitcoin and Ethereum have had a significant fall since Monday, when the ICO ban news was announced, and have continued to lose their value (Monday to Tuesday loss was 2.5%). Ethereum was particularly hit hard, because it is the platform of choice for the coin offerings.

The ICO ban was deemed a “huge deal”, in the words of Adam Efrima, trading platform eToro’s operations director, who gave an interview for Business Insider, adding that, “it’s bigger than most people think it is.”

After the US issued a risk statement about ICOs this summer, China’s central bank has issued a ban on all related funding as it “disrupts economic and financial order.”

Singapore’s central bank gave a broader statement regarding the causes behind the ICO ban: “ICOs are vulnerable to money laundering and terrorist financing risks due to the anonymous nature of the transactions, and the ease with which large sums of monies may be raised in a short period of time.”

Source:

“Cryptocurrencies are continuing to fall after China’s shock ICO ban”, Williams-Grut Oscar, businessinsider.com, September 5, 2017.

“Ethereum was particularly hit hard”

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Written by Andrej Andreas_V

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Andrej is a content writer for LCB that has joined the team in June 2017. Born and raised in Belgrade, he took up two different colleges to reflect on his two equally important sides - the arts and IT. He is an avid reader, art lover and a traveler. In what he likes to think of as his parallel life and career, he enjoys painting, writing, digging out amazing music and experiencing new places and cultures. 
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Fact-checked by Nina.D Sylvanas

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