Recently, cryptocurrencies have become a center of government scrutiny, especially in the regions of China and South Korea. Many have attributed this to the rise in popularity of Initial Coin Offerings (a.k.a ICOs) that have been used to raise capital for up and coming cryptocurrency based platforms and businesses.
In many countries, including the United States, the debate still continues as to whether ICO offerings constitute a security, and thus fall under regulation. This has prompted some countries, including China and South Korea, to place a ban on ICO activities within their borders. China even went as far as to halt two major exchanges, OKCoin and Houobi.
Despite these setbacks and new regulatory moves however, bitcoin has managed to hold strong, although encountering an initial slump when the China announcement first occurred. As this article is being written, at 9:00 A.M. EST on October 2, 2017 the price of Bitcoin is $4383.00 on the popular Coinbase exchange, which is up $81.76 from the same time yesterday.
This rise is based off of strong news coming from other countries, including Japan, where volume is expected to supplant China, meaning this region could be the new hub of Bitcoin trading volume. The Financial Services Authority of the country has announced that it will officially endorse 11 cryptocurrency exchanges, thus freeing its citizens access to Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies such as Ethereum, as opposed to the tighter regulation of its neighbors.
Also, in some part responsible for Bitcoin’s success was the controversial and much anticipated UASF support for SegWit on August 1st, the adoption of which will pave the way for trustless payment channels that have the potential to allow more throughput and bring an overall increase of capacity and speed to the protocol.
Other cryptocurrencies and tokens have also received positive news as of late, these being powered by the platform that is often at the center of the ICO debate, Ethereum. This includes the successful airdrop of the OmiseGo (OMG) tokens, which power a consumer-oriented eWallet platform. The Singapore-based company recently completed a round of Series B funding from Kungsri finnovate. Other platforms are still boldly planning to enter the Chinese crypto market space, including the ledger platform Ripple (XRP).
With this positive news, the future looks especially bullish for Bitcoin, despite the short term setbacks of late. What are your thoughts on the Initial Coin Offering method of fundraising, and regulation of cryptocurrencies in general? What is your take on the future of Bitcoin? Let us know in the comments!
