This weekend the cryptocurrency markets went on contending against the setback caused by a last week’s regulatory announcement from South Korea, which turned out to be false.
On January 11, Justice Minister Park stated that the ministry is working on drafting a cryptocurrency trading ban bill in order to close down cryptocurrency exchanges. Just after that the price of almost all cryptocurrencies in the global market lost in value, with Bitcoin and Ethereum falling by nearly 10 percent. A couple of hours later, the Ministry of Strategy and Finance found out about the claims of Minister Park through media reports and emphasized that it did not support the personal statement of Minister Park nor agreed with it.
On January 12, the Blue House, the executive office of President Moon Jae-in, made a public statement and apologized to South Korean citizens for the recent cryptocurrency trading ban controversy.They pointed out that the ban would not be imposed in the short-term.
The South Korean faked ban is not the only attempt to regulate the cryptocurrency exchanges’ activity. Earlier China, one of the dominant players in terms of Bitcoin mining activities due to low electricity cost, banned Initial Coin Offerings (ICO) and closed down local Bitcoin exchanges. It also decided to put restrictions on the use of electricity consumed by the Bitcoin miners.
However, regulators have never been able to kill off Bitcoin. But it is clear that they carry a lot of weight when it comes to affecting the market price.
With the exception of Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Dash, the top 10 cryptocurrencies in the global market have increased in value after the ban turning out to be fake.
Among the top 100 cryptocurrencies, only 20 managed to keep their values in the last 24 hours. In particular, cryptocurrencies, which are heavily concentrated in the South Korean crypto exchange market in terms of daily trading volume and user activity, have recovered faster than others.
According to the data from CoinMarketCap, Bitcoin price decreased by 0.9% in the last 24 hours and currently makes up $13,722, while Ethereum suffered a 1.93% loss, falling down to $1331,79. Conversely, some currencies enjoyed an increase in value. Specifically, the price of Cardano increased by 4.30% and now runs at $0,833502. Another cryptocurrency that scored an advance is NEO – it increased by 13.89%, reaching $157,99.
Given that the South Korean cryptocurrency exchange market is already recovering at a rapid rate, the global market will likely follow suit.
However, there is one more thing that can fluster cryptocurrency admirers. Bitcoins are created as a reward for a process known as ‘mining’. The first bitcoin was created in January 2009, and there were nearly 21 million coins left to be mined. As more coins were mined, the higher rose the bitcoin’s price. So far on January 15, 2018, 16,803,537 BTC have been mined, meaning that there’s only 4196463 – less than 20 percent — left for miners to acquire. This leads to growth in the demand for the cryptocurrency, which allows to speculate that the bitcoin prices will take a flight in the near future.co