- 7:46 ET, Sep 26 2021
- Updated: 7:46 ET, Sep 26 2021
CHINA’S crackdown on cryptocurrencies has seen Bitcoin and Ether plunge in price after the country ruled all transactions in the digital assets were illegal.
Bitcoin’s price dipped about five percent to $42,496.12, according to Coin Metrics data. Ether, the second-largest digital currency, dropped seven percent to $2,921.53.
It comes after China said that mining for cryptocurrency tokens is banned.
The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) added: “Virtual currency-related business activities are illegal financial activities.”
The country previously banned financial institutions from offering crypto-related transactions and warned investors against speculative trading in them.
Read our cryptocurrency live blog for the latest news and updates…
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STEVEN SEAGAL’S BITCOIN SCANDAL
Under Siege and Half Past Dead hardman Seagal was paid to promote “Bitcoiin2Gen” (B2G) which saw 500 investors left out of pocket in cash and other cryptocurrencies as he unwittingly ended up backing the scam.
Seagal reportedly had been offered $250,000 along with £750,000 worth of B2G for appearing in promotional materials for the con artists.
He appeared in a press release for them and “wholeheartedly” endorsed the scheme in a post to his 7million followers on Facebook.
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DATING APP SCAMS
Some scam operations have started using dating apps to reel in potential targets.
In some reports, scammers would pose as a long-distance love interest sharing a hot new cryptocurrency opportunity.
About 20 percent of the money reportedly lost through dating scams in around the last year involved cryptocurrency.
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EXPERTS WEIGH IN ON ALCHEMY PAY AND BINANCE
Shaun Heng, vice president of growth and operations at CoinMarketCap told The Sun that it’s challenging to assess the risk of many crypto projects like Alchemy Pay.
And while he isn’t a fan of Alchemy Pay’s crypto-linked cards, he did tout one of its partners, Binance, which is the largest crypto exchange by trading volume globally.
“The partnership with Binance is most definitely a good sign of validation for the project,” Heng said.
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LITECOIN VS. BITCOIN
Litecoin, which was established in 2011 by Google engineer Charlie Lee, operates similarly to Bitcoin.
Mr Lee on occasions refers to Litecoin as the “silver to Bitcoin’s gold.”
The two cryptocurrencies act similarly in how their global payment operations are set up. Both are not controlled by financial institutions.
Like most cryptocurrencies, Litecoin uses blockchain technology for processing and recording transactions.
While Litecoin is smaller, it is a quicker and cheaper alternative when compared to Bitcoin.
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THE ‘MUSK’ EFFECT ON CRYPTO
Elon Musk has once again been linked to activity in the crypto markets.
Last week, the Telsa CEO tweeted about the arrival of his new Shiba Inu pup, Floki.
Just days later, the price of Shiba Inu coin was skyrocketing.
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WHAT WILL SHIBA INU BE WORTH IN 2022?
Plenty of cryptocurrency fans have predicted Shiba Inu’s value for 2022, but you should take it with a pinch of salt as it’s nowhere near guaranteed.
For example, crypto website Wallet Investor expects a value of up to $0.000018 in a year’s time.
Meanwhile, Coin Price Forecast expects it to hit a value of $0.00002336 by the middle of next year.
It then expects it to end the year at a slightly higher level of $0.00003037.
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WHERE DOES COINBASE REVENUE COME FROM?
The majority of Coinbase’s revenues come from Bitcoin and Ether on the Ethereum blockchain.
They are currently the number one and number two cryptocurrencies on the market, according to MarketWatch.
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POSING AS AN AGENCY OR BUSINESS
As noted by Inverse, many phishing scams will attempt to impersonate a government agency or business to get your attention.
Some reports to the FTC said victims were contacted by scammers pretending to be the Social Security Administration and asked to deposit money into Bitcoin ATMs.
Other victims lost money to scammers posing as the cryptocurrency company Coinbase.
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CRYPTO SCAMS
While the growth of Bitcoin has skyrocketed in some bank accounts, it’s also fueled the growth of crypto-related fraud operations.
The FTC reported that since October of 2020, nearly 7,000 people have reported losses of more than $80million in the US due to cryptocurrency scams.
That number is around 12 times, or 1,000 per cent more than reported losses from the period a year earlier.
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EXPERTS PREDICT POLYGON’S GROWTH
How the price of Ethereum will change in the future is impossible to know for certain.
However, experts and investors have made some predictions.
Charlie Barton, an investment specialist at comparison site Finder, warned in mid-May: “The performance of Polygon has been extremely strong recently, achieving 10,000% growth in the last year.”
“It’s easy to get carried away, but such aggressive growth is highly unlikely to continue forever.”
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WHAT IS COINBASE?
Coinbase is an American company that operates a cryptocurrency exchange platform.
It operates remotely and has no physical office.
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CHINA MAKES CRYPTO TRADING ILLEGAL
China‘s central bank announced that all cryptocurrency trading is illegal in the country and mining the tokens is banned.
The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) said: “Virtual currency-related business activities are illegal financial activities.”
The country previously banned financial institutions from offering crypto related transactions, and warned investors against speculative trading in them
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CHINA PREVIOUSLY SHUT DOWN CRYPTO EXCHANGES
It’s not Beijing’s first move against digital currency – in 2017, China shut down its local cryptocurrency exchanges.
Despite the war on crypto, Chinese mines power nearly 80% of the global trade in cryptocurrencies.
While crypto creation and trading have been illegal in China since 2019, further crackdowns this year by Beijing warned banks to halt related transactions and closed much of the country’s vast network of bitcoin miners.
Thursday’s statement by the central bank sent the strongest yet signal that China is closed to crypto.
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CHINA’S STATEMENT
The PBOC said it will “resolutely clamp down on virtual currency speculation, and related financial activities and misbehaviour in order to safeguard people’s properties and maintain economic, financial and social order”.
It said that trading of virtual currencies had become “widespread, disrupting economic and financial order, giving rise to money laundering, illegal fund-raising, fraud, pyramid schemes and other illegal and criminal activities.”
Bitcoin, the world’s largest digital currency, and other cryptos cannot be traced by a country’s central bank, making them difficult to regulate.
The crypto crackdown opens the gates for China to introduce its own digital currency, which it is already working on and will allow the central government to monitor transactions.
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PRICES PLUNGE
Cryptocurrency prices have plunged across the board, including Tether, Cardano and XRP.
The top 50 coins in the crypto market were almost all down on Friday (September 24).
The price of cryptocurrencies are volatile, meaning they can go down as well as up, and in the blink of an eye.
And like today, action by governments and regulators can influence the price.
They are not regulated, meaning you have little protection if something goes wrong.
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WHAT IS ALGORAND?
Algorand is a cryptocurrency of the Algorand blockchain, a public decentralized network on which smart contracts can be built.
It was created in 2019 by Silvio Micali, a professor a the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
The computer scientist has also won the Turing Award for his work in the area of cryptography.
The Algorand Foundation based in Singapore is behind the project.
Algorand claims that it speeds up transactions and improves efficiency compared to bitcoin and other blockchains.
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SHARES IN CRYPTO FIRMS ALSO FALL
Shares of cryptocurrency-related firms Coinbase Global , MicroStrategy Inc, Riot Blockchain and Marathon Patent Group fell after China’s central bank put a ban on crypto trading and mining.
“It’s been a very volatile week to say the least, so I think going into the last week of September the volatility is likely to continue especially with the end-of-the-quarter window dressing,” said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at Spartan Capital Securities in New York.
Investors are also looking for signs of progress on President Joe Biden’s spending and budget bills.
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THE ‘MUSK’ EFFECT ON CRYPTO
Elon Musk has once again been linked to activity in the crypto markets.
Earlier this week, the Telsa CEO tweeted about the arrival of his new Shiba Inu pup, Floki.
Just days later, the price of Shiba Inu coin was skyrocketing.
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WHERE DOES COINBASE REVENUE COME FROM?
The majority of Coinbase’s revenues come from Bitcoin and Ether on the Ethereum blockchain.
They are currently the number one and number two cryptocurrencies on the market, according to MarketWatch.
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CRYPTO SCAMS
While the growth of Bitcoin has skyrocketed in some bank accounts, it’s also fueled the growth of crypto-related fraud operations.
The FTC reported that since October of 2020, nearly 7,000 people have reported losses of more than $80million in the US due to cryptocurrency scams.
That number is around 12 times, or 1,000 per cent more than reported losses from the period a year earlier.
-
CHINA’S STATEMENT
The PBOC said it will “resolutely clamp down on virtual currency speculation, and related financial activities and misbehaviour in order to safeguard people’s properties and maintain economic, financial and social order”.
It said that trading of virtual currencies had become “widespread, disrupting economic and financial order, giving rise to money laundering, illegal fund-raising, fraud, pyramid schemes and other illegal and criminal activities.”
Bitcoin, the world’s largest digital currency, and other cryptos cannot be traced by a country’s central bank, making them difficult to regulate.
The crypto crackdown opens the gates for China to introduce its own digital currency, which it is already working on and will allow the central government to monitor transactions.
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AVOID CRYPTO SCAMS
As noted by Inverse, many phishing scams will attempt to impersonate a government agency or business to get your attention.
Some reports to the FTC said victims were contacted by scammers pretending to be the Social Security Administration and asked to deposit money into Bitcoin ATMs.
Other victims lost money to scammers posing as the cryptocurrency company Coinbase.
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WHAT IS HASHGRAPH?
Hashgraph is similar to a blockchain and was created in 2017 by American computer scientist Leemon Baird.
The Hedera Hashgraph system is a distributed ledger built on Hashgraph and was created by Baird along with Mance Harmon.
HBAR is the cryptocurrency of the Hedera Hashgraph.
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WILL CHAINLINK RISE TO $35?
Crypto investor Justin Bennett sees Chainlink rising to $35.
He told The Daily Hodl: “The $27.50 area could attract a few sellers as it’s the 50% retracement of the correction.
“That said, a daily close above $25 should flip the area to support.
“If Chainlink can get above the $27.50 area, there isn’t much stopping a run at $35.”
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XLM’S PRICE
The XLM price or the value of a lumen as of August 27 is $0.335, according to CoinMarketCap.
Its value is down 1.99% over the past 24 hours but is up 253% compared with last year when the value was at $0.096 in August 2020.
XLM hit an all-time high of $0.938 in January 2018 and the closest it has got since then was $0.796 in May 2021.
