For the traders out there, this must have been a frustrating week as there was not major action on any of the large-cap coins. Of course there were pumps and there were dumps and there were pump-and-dumps, but that’s commonplace in this market in this day and age.
As the year wraps up along with this week, we should reflect on not just what we experienced throughout the week. It was this time last year that we reached the trough of the bear market that came to define 2018 in crypto trading. Now we are in the midst of a frenzy of government activity geared towards just how to regulate cryptos. Many governments are even exploring their options in deploying their own digital currencies from central banks to undermine the potential of decentralized cryptocurrency projects altogether.
For example, as late as March of this year, South Korea’s Bank of Korea declared that there really wasn’t much they would do in regard to blockchain technology or, more specifically, digital currencies, since they would not be great tools for achieving economic stability and would still require the input of private banks to work. Since the beginning of this month, that same bank has been looking to staff a research team to focus on their options with their own CBDC.
The determining factor in the survival of cryptocurrencies will lie in the loopholes left by the regulations government officials are feverishly trying to patch together with their traditional mindsets. If people will not adopt decentralized digital currency, why would they adopt a government-backed one? This is a question that has yet to be answered, but may gain a precedent as early as the coming weeks since The Bahamas is piloting their own CBDC starting today.
It has taken years now for the significantly larger blockchain community since early 2017 to get to a point where serious conversations about the limits and boons of blockchain technology can be taken place among international legislatures. Even the UN got in on it this year. You can tell we focus on the legislative/regulatory/technical/concrete here over the abstract and relatively inconsequential speculation when discussing cryptos and blockchain. That focus on conversation will continue into 2020, as will Bitcoin and Ethereum, as will the failure of useless projects, as will the sophistication of the parts of the world that utilize blockchain technology as a tool to make people’s lives easier.
YouTube Goes to War with Crypto…. Or Did They?
At the beginning of the week, it looked like YouTube had banned all of our favorite crypto-related channels. They call it the ‘crypto purge’ of YouTube’s smaller and relatively lesser-viewed channels and videos on the topic. It could have been done to protect users from scams, but that’s unlikely since Google already reversed a similar ad ban. Of course there was an uproar until YouTube took it back and claimed that it was a mistake. Then again – content creators claim that many of their videos still haven’t been returned to the site for public viewing. These same content creators are being threatened with revocation of their accounts or even legal action for putting users at risk and selling unregulated items in their videos.
Virgil Griffith Faces Potential Further Challenges in Court
Virgil Griffith, for whatever it’s worth from me, doesn’t seem to appreciate the serious trouble he’s in. The judge presiding over his case has even gone as far as to suspect that Griffith may attempt to flee in a North Korean jet if set free on bond. It should be noted, before we go further, that this news source is not highly vetted. They don’t have a tremendous amount of followers, not that that is a disqualifying factor, but that there is no corroborating evidence other than this individual’s testimony. Anyway, the judge cites conversations Virgil had via text with his parents about what his intentions and activities in DPRK actually were which contradict what Virgil has been saying to the judge. His hotshot lawyer is having a hard time convincing the judge that there was no harm or foul. Frankly, it may not get any easier since being involved with DPRK and finance won’t help him make any friends stateside.
Poloniex Drops their KYC Requirement for sub-$10k Trades
Poloniex lowered its barriers to entry for many as one of its first orders of business after being bought out by Tron founder Justin Sun. They have removed the KYC requirement for level 1 users who transact less than $10k per day on the platform. This is good news for traders who want an easy way to enter positions and liquidate without the burden of providing valuable personal information, but bad news for users in countries that are coming down hard on suspected money launderers. *Note that many country’s governments don’t see the difference between money laundering and crypto trading.
The Bahamas Pilots their Sand Dollar National Digital Currency
The most important takeaway from this announcement, since the headline says most of what you need to know, is this:
The central bank clarified that “Sand Dollar” is essentially a “digital fiat currency” and not a cryptocurrency in any sense. “The digital currency would not be a stable coin, or a parallel currency, in the sense that it would not derive any value separate from the external reserves backing afforded to the Central Bank’s demand liabilities.”
Let’s hope that this precedent for CBDC goes well for all parties involved, and that the virtues of a zero-sum game shine through to highlight the importance of a trustless solution to the condition of finance now.
Have a happy new year, to those who celebrate it, and keep trading clean… beware those Upbit ETH still lurking around your favorite Telegram rooms!
