People's Bank of China is looking for cryptocurrency experts

Summary:

• PBOC is looking for blockchain experts

• RIPPLE bounces higher while other coins trade flat

• SEC reveals extremely fraudulent ICO project

Major cryptocurrencies took a hit yesterday along with the stock markets all around the World. Nevertheless, they failed to bounce higher along with the stock markets today. Bitcoin trades flat in the vicinity of the $6200 handle and Ripple is the only major coin that is producing larger moves today.

Bitcoin accounted smaller sell-off yesterday in comparison with broad cryptocurrency market what led to bounce in its market share. Source: Macrobond, XTB Research

Probably a lot of people are mad at themselves that they did not jumped into cryptocurrencies during 2017 when prices were grinding higher day after day. However, according to the Hurun report it is not cryptocurrency trading that makes you rich. Hurun report is a list of the wealthiest individuals in China and includes people with a net worth of over 2 billion yuans. In the latest edition of the report one can find 13 people directly related to cryptocurrencies. 9 out of these 13 people are major stakeholders in the cryptocurrency mining companies. One of them even made it to the top100 wealthiest Chinese citizens. Others are owners of cryptocurrency exchanges. Having said that, one can see that it is not trading that makes you rich but rather providing possibilities for others to trade.

RIPPLE is the only major coin that is able to distance itself from yesterday’s closing price. The 33-period moving average (green line on the chart above) that coincides with the previous swing level may prove to be a hurdle for bulls in near time. Source: xStation5

Staying in China lets mentioned the newest positions the People’s Bank of China is currently recruiting for. According to document published on 10 October the Bank is currently looking for two engineers with experience in blockchain and cryptography with an aim that the two would develop big data platform and chip processor that would enable cryptocurrency transactions. Apart from engineers PBOC is also looking for law and finance experts that would research risk management and economic mechanisms on legal digital currency. Such a move may be closely linked to CN finance report recently released. The report claimed that recently introduced USD-backed “stablecoins” may negative influence fiat currencies and pose a threat for yuan. The report authors advised Chinese authorities to evaluated possible implementation of the yuan-backed stable coin. CN Finance is affiliated with the People’s Bank of China.

BITCOIN bulls managed to defend the $6000 handle yesterday. Nevertheless after a brief bounce the price seems locked today in the $6100-6200 range. Source: xStation5  

Last but not least, the US Securities Exchange Commission is said to expand its crackdown on Initial Coin Offerings. Latest reports claim that SEC may be onto more than a hundred ICOs of questionable reliability. While this is nothing new SEC issued an announcement on Thursday that showed how creative can people be when trying to attract investors to ICOs. Namely, in a announcement SEC reported that it has halted one ICO on the back of misleading information included in the prospect. The entity behind the ICO claimed that the projected was backed by the Blockchain Exchange Commission. This regulatory agency was created by ICO makers solely for the purpose of this ICO. Additionally, the so-called Blockchain Exchange Commission had a logo strikingly similar to the one of SEC and was labelled to be headquartered at the same address that SEC is. While this may sound funny at first word one should think about all the people that are not aware of SEC’s reluctance to cryptocurrencies. These people are likely to believe that something like Blockchain Exchange Commission is actually a part of SEC structures and will not see any obstacles to invest in this clearly fraudulent project. Such schemes undermine already stretched confidence in the cryptocurrencies and blockchain as a whole and may prove to be significant limitation to broader expansion and adoption.