Cryptocurrency prices tumble as South Korea warns ban could still happen

[midian182]

Back in December, the price of Bitcoin plummeted when South Korea introduced tighter regulations and said it was considering shutting down exchanges. Now, cryptocurrencies are falling once again after finance minister Kim Dong-yeon suggested a trading ban could still happen, pending a government review.

Kim said: “There are no disagreements over regulating speculation,” which includes a ban on anonymous cryptocurrency accounts and taxing the income made on virtual currency. He added that shutting down the exchanges was “a live option but government ministries need to very seriously review it.”

The news has seen Bitcoin drop to its lowest point since the start of December last year. At the time of writing, the price is at $11,913; around the same time yesterday, it was $13,773. Almost exactly one month ago, Bitcoin hit an all-time high of $19,783. Since then, about $125 billion has been wiped from its market cap.

Other cryptocurrencies, such as Ethereum and Ripple, have also seen steep declines of more than 15 percent this morning. In the last 24 hours, Ripple has dropped from $1.84 to $1.35.

South Korea is trying to rein in the cryptocurrency craze sweeping the country. Prime Minister Lee Nak-yeon said it could "lead to some serious distorted or pathological phenomenon."

But the people of South Korea are pushing back against the cryptocurrency regulations. A petition demanding their removal was filed with the Presidential Office on December 28 and has now reached over 200,000 signatures. The government is required to give an official response once a petition gains 200,000 names in a month.

While the petition agrees with taxing profits on cryptocurrencies, it is against extreme measures such as closing down exchanges.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/72761-cryptocurrency-prices-tumble-south-korea-warns-ban-could.html

 

[yRaz]

Wait until the market bottoms out and buy back in. Crypto is gain traction all over the world, south korea is just one market. The American banking system is starting to get behind crypto and they have some of the biggest say in world wide politics. The banks get what they want and if they want crypto, they'll have it.

Major US banks have been dumping hundreds of millions into it, this will last 2 weeks tops.

 

[Uncle Al]

As stated, cryptocurrency is really at it's infancy so wild swings are to be expected. Doubtful that it will every be entirely eliminated since it's' attractions away from governmental controls are so great. There are a few major players in this market now and the rewards will be greatest for those that have enough risk tolerance to ride out some of these wild swings. if I were younger I would throw $10,000 at it and watch it bounce around. The ability to double your money in a few weeks is far too tempting for all but the strongest will's to resist.

 

[ET3D]

That's the problem. There's nothing to it but greed. There are some sound concept behind cryptocurrency, but there are some *****ic concepts like mining. Hopefully in the end things will settle into reasonable systems, but in the meantime we have to suffer through the 'free money' craze.

 

[jack_alexander]

Makes this 68-year-old geek happy to have lived a poverty-stricken life.

 

[alabama man]

Destroying the environment shouldn't make money. Cryptocurrency is based on electricity consumption and just because of that I'm against it. If they calculated cancer research as byproduct or something but no, just spend as much electricity as possible = profit. Stupid and should be made illegal world wide.

 

[CaptainTom]

Destroying the environment shouldn't make money. Cryptocurrency is based on electricity consumption and just because of that I'm against it. If they calculated cancer research as byproduct or something but no, just spend as much electricity as possible = profit. Stupid and should be made illegal world wide.

How can you say that with your Earth Destroying gaming rig? IT USES ELECTRICITY!

Then go consider how much energy would be saved if we removed the Air Selling banks from the world economy....

 

[CaptainTom]

That's the problem. There's nothing to it but greed. There are some sound concept behind cryptocurrency, but there are some *****ic concepts like mining. Hopefully in the end things will settle into reasonable systems, but in the meantime we have to suffer through the 'free money' craze.

"Nothing to it but greed."

Ok kiddie. The internet is just a fad too!

 

[ET3D]

"Nothing to it but greed."

Ok kiddie. The internet is just a fad too!

My prediction is that ten years from now blockchains will be everywhere and mining will be nowhere. Once you take away the 'free money' aspect, cryptocurrencies would actually be usable.

 

[CaptainTom]

My prediction is that ten years from now blockchains will be everywhere and mining will be nowhere. Once you take away the 'free money' aspect, cryptocurrencies would actually be usable.

I think you are inherently missing the point of mining. It is a distribution system that is completely fair and un-tethered to some centralized swindler (Like with the case of Ripple).

More work needs to go into making mining algorithms that more efficiently scale payments for sure, but the overall idea is pretty clever.

 

[ET3D]

I think you are inherently missing the point of mining. It is a distribution system that is completely fair and un-tethered to some centralized swindler (Like with the case of Ripple).

I think you're missing the fact that mining put the power in the hands of the most greedy, which is much worse than putting it in the hands of governments.

You're also missing the fact that mining isn't a distribution system, which is probably why you're missing the fact that blockchains don't require mining, and that generating money with mining is pretty much the opposite of democratising currency.

 

[CaptainTom]

I think you're missing the fact that mining put the power in the hands of the most greedy, which is much worse than putting it in the hands of governments.

You're also missing the fact that mining isn't a distribution system, which is probably why you're missing the fact that blockchains don't require mining, and that generating money with mining is pretty much the opposite of democratising currency.

"Hands of the most greedy, not governments."

Ok now this is getting funny for me. Governments aren't often the most greedy in your opinion?

You are throwing a lot of broad statements around without any details.

-How isn't mining a distribution system? (Are you actually gonna argue coins aren't distributed through mining?)
-How is mining the "opposite" of democratization? (Proof of Stake for example simply rewards the people who already have the most money).
-I am aware that mining isn't required genius. But what would recommend? Why couldn't mining be a part of a network.

Don't be so sure your way (if you even have one in mind), is the best way. These subjects are (and always will be) up for debate in the community. You would be good to remember that just a few years ago a lot of the challengers to the Bitcoin thrown were things like Peercoin, Blackcoin, and dozens of other peer-to-peer coins.

Yet Ethereum, a minable coin; is the only one that has seriously challenged Bitcoin's dominance so far.

 

[ET3D]

...

Okay, I'll answer them in order.

First, of course governments aren't the most greedy. Governments distribute most of the money they get, and generally take care of their country. Of course, the less democratic the less good the government does. Saying that the people who mine are somehow better for people is like a US citizen longing for the 'freedom of Venezuela'.

Really, unless you think that organised crime is somehow better than government, it's terribly naive to think that mining gets money into the hands of good people. (And if you do think that...)

Regarding 'distribution system', I guess I just didn't understand why you mean. I now understand that it's allocating funds to people, and yes, that's what mining does. And in a really stupid way, too. The goal of most mining awards is to get a coin off the ground. It does that by awarding early adoptors more money. This encourages people to mine a coin while it's new and discourages from mining it when it isn't. The only way to make mining profitable when it's older is if it continuously goes up in price, but that can't happen, especially since its inherent value is very low, in large part because few people have most of the money.

Coins defined this way aren't sustainable in the long run. This method simply encourages creating more and more coin types and switching between them depending on profitability. There is no incentive for people to maintain a network once it's not profitable. That's where PoS is a win, because it encourages stability.

Mining is the opposite of democratisation because democratisation would suggest that everyone benefits from it, which isn't the case. Coins go to big miners, and currently farms buy the vast majority of hardware. Not only that, but it would be easy for any big organisation, be it organised crime, a government, or a big corporation, to take control. The only reason nobody has mucked with the Bitcoin blockchain (far as I know) is an agreement to separate pools. The more money will be in crypto, the more mining will be controlled by people you don't really want to be in control.

I also have a problem in calling giving money to people democratisation. Money allocation has nothing to do with democracy (unless you're a socialist, but even then not at this level). Not that it works, as said before, being rather lopsided, but even so, the only thing that I'd really call democratisation is putting the financial system in people's hands, and while that's what crypto in general tries to achieve, it has nothing to do with mining on one hand, and on the other hand mining pretty much fails to make sure this happens (because it's easy for those with power to control).

I'm not sure what the answer is. PoS isn't perfect but I think solves some problems. So far the only thing I can say is that mining is stupid and dangerous, and coins in general are a bubble. I like Ethereum for the ideas it put into the system, and I think it's pretty much the only coin that has some actual meat, but even there without moving away from mining I don't think it's sustainable.