The entire crypto market is reeling this morning after some alarming news from the Korean peninsula.
The young government of South Korea has just passed a law to try and reign in the overzealous population's cryptocurrency craving. The law puts a blanket ban on opening anonymous crypto wallets and will give regulators the authority to shut down exchanges "if necessary."
According to a recent poll, 31% of workers in South Korea have already transacted in cryptocurrencies. So this ominous threat from the government of the biggest cryptotrading country in the world is stinging the market at the moment.
The value of Bitcoin is down about 10% (blue circle) since the news broke sending prices back to where they were on Christmas day. Though we're still far from the lows of December 22nd.
Where we go from here is really in the hands of the Korean regulators and how they use their new power. Of course, the first stipulation about anonymous accounts is not enforceable. By nature, crypto allows for anonimity and anyone can open an anonymous bitcoin wallet and transfer coins there.
The power to shut exchanges is pretty scary. Though they wouldn't be able to stop all cryptotrading in the country they could seriously hamper the free flow from Won to Crypto if they so choose.
We've seen the market sell-off (blue circle) when China implemented a similar ban back in September, but the market has since recovered.
Revision: Please note that I made a mistake in yesterday's update. The total supply of XRP is 100 Billion, not 100 Trillion. Very sorry for the error. Many thanks to those who pointed it out. Glad to see you're paying attention. ;)
Today's Highlights
US Dollar Smear
Copper Rising
Hard Fork Scammers
Please note: All data, figures & graphs are valid as of December 28th. All trading carries risk. Only risk capital you're prepared to lose.
Traditional markets
It was thought that Trump's new tax plan would be very good for the US Dollar. Analysts were touting that companies that operate offshore would flock back to the United States bringing with them Billions of Dollars in "repatriation" money.
Well, the Dollar has been selling like a hot cake since the bill was signed into law on December 22nd.
Of course, the law doesn't go into effect until next year. So if those analysts believe that it will indeed go up they're gonna get an excellent price to buy in. Personally, I'm a bit hesitant. The Dollar has been sinking steadily since the beginning of the year and these last few days could be seen as a dangerous continuation of that trend.
With the selloff in the Buck we can see the commodities, which are mostly priced in US Dollars, gaining in comparison.
Yesterday, we spoke about gold and oil, which are still rising steadily. Today I just wanted to highlight Copper, which is trading at it's highest level since 2013.
Yesterday, China ordered it's top copper producer to halt production due to the high level of pollution. This comes on top of news earlier in the year from Chile who closed their biggest copper mines. Supply is low, demand is high.
Perhaps after a bit of a pullback, this could be a great metal to add to any diversified long term portfolio.
No2X-x2 (Scam Alert)
The Segwit2x fork is indeed planned for today but we certainly haven't seen any rush on bitcoin like we did the last time.
The previous plan to implement the Segwit2x was called off due to lack of consensus in the community. This new version of Segwit2x apparently has less consensus and is even starting to smell a bit fishy.
This cute article from ccn.com gives an incredibly unbiased opinion of how this new fork is definitely a scam. Needless to say, eToro will not be supporting this new Bitcoin abomination.
There's no doubt that bitcoin needs to upgrade the capacity of the network if she is to attain the status of a global monetary system. However, these incessant unsupported forks are nothing more than a distraction from progress.
eToro, Senior Market Analyst
Disclosure: This content is for information and educational purposes only and should not be considered investment advice or an investment recommendation. Past performance is not an indication of future results. All trading carries risk. Only risk capital you're prepared to lose.