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Bitcoin Price Falls Again On Reports that China is Shutting Down Local Exchanges (cnbc.com)
China's clampdown on cryptocurrencies has reportedly taken a new direction -- to close down local bitcoin exchanges. From a report: Initial reports from Chinese media that the government plans to close down domestic cryptocurrency exchanges have seen the virtual coin shed more than $100 since Friday. Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal also reported Monday that that the country is planning to shut down digital currency exchanges. Bitcoin sunk to a low of $4,241 in late trading in the U.K. Friday, and reached a low of $4,108 on Monday, according to Coindesk data. It climbed to a record high of $5,000 dollars a little over a week ago, and has shot up by nearly 350 percent since the start of the year. The latest reported crackdown follows a decision by Chinese regulators -- including the People's Bank of China (PBOC) -- to ban initial coin offerings (ICOs). ICOs are a means of raising funds by selling off new digital tokens. A crackdown on ICOs would not affect the original cryptocurrency directly, but bitcoin still dropped more than $1,000 over a period of three days. China's latest move to shut down local exchanges would mark a new direction for the country in its efforts to regulate the market.
Please, someone, verify the math... how did Bitcoin lost more than $1000 and still be above $4000 when the all time high was $5000.
China subsidizes electricity and hardware for bitcoin processing. Are they trying to take over the global market while minimizing bitcoin's disruption in their own markets? That would follow with their methods for standard currencies.
Only if those exchanges don't nail you on the buy & sell rates (they do), and then there's the BTC transaction fee to consider. I'm sure that if the difference in rates between exchanges is great enough to turn a profit, this arbitrage is already happening.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
It's becoming clear that BTC are pretty bad for trying to hide your transactions from the government, if they are somewhat keen to find out what you're up to. There are still a lot of regular (online) places that accept BTC payments, mostly because their payment gateways haven't dropped cryptocurrency yet, but you generally pay a bit extra if you use BTC compared to CC, PayPal or online banking. I doubt many people use that option. Then there are countries with high inflation where it's helpful to change your wages into something more stable (traditionally: cash $). But if BTC itself continues to drop, that market will dry up pretty quickly. The price of BTC is driven by demand, and once the tax evaders, online shoppers and people looking for a place to store value get out, BTC may well crash beyond the loss of a few thousand on the exchange rate. Right now, there's also a great many "investors" (speculators) holding BTC, but if the price continues to fall, they'll start selling off accelerating the process.
It will hold some value for a while, but I'm betting it will disappear eventually. There may be some coins that survive, like the ones from non-fraudulent ICOs (if there is such a thing) that offer a real stake in a company or access to an actually desirable service. But the former will be regulated, entities like the SEC have already said they are looking into ICOs.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
There will always be transactions that people want to hide from governments.
And that is where blockchain currencies completely fail. Yes, your blockchain can be anonymous - but if it is tied to you, then EVERY SINGLE TRANSACTION in that blockchain is also tied to you. With cash, if they tie one transaction to you - the others are still anonymous. Cryptocurrencies are 100% traceable and indentifiable to a single user; once you know who that user is, you know everything they've ever done with their blockchain.
Cash is still king for anonymity, as it requires ZERO identification for any transaction and each transaction is completely decoupled for every other transaction. Buy illicit drugs with your blockchain? Make one connection to you, and I now know you purchased Oxycontin 43 times over the last 3 years. Buy with cash? I get you for one purchase - and don't know about the other 42.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!