Eurasian Association Of Blockchain To Sue Social Media Giants For Banning Crypto Ads

NEWS

Cryptocurrency and Blockchain associations in Russia, China, and South Korea are planning to file a joint lawsuit in May against Google, Twitter, Facebook, and Yandex for not allowing crypto-related advertising, local news outlet TASS reported yesterday, March 27.

At the end of January, Facebook announced a crypto advertisement ban citing “misleading or deceptive promotional practices,” with Google following suit in March, although their ban will not  take effect until June. Most recently, Twitter confirmed they will also ban crypto-related ads, specifically for Initial Coin Offerings (ICO) and token sales. Yandex is also expected to enact its own set of prohibitive measures, according to local media reports.

The organizations involved in the upcoming lawsuit against the four social media and tech giants are the Russian Association of Cryptocurrency and Blockchain (RACIB), the Korea Venture Business Associations, and LCBT, a Chinese association of crypto investors.

Yury Pripachkin, the president of RACIB, said at the Blockchain-RF 2018 conference held in Moscow from March 27-28 that the actions of these four tech companies have negatively affected the crypto market:

“We believe that this is a use of the monopoly position of these four companies, which have entered into a cartel agreement with each other in order to manipulate the market. The ban from these four organizations has led to a significant drop in the market in recent months.”

The organizations have created the Eurasian Association of Blockchain in order to create a fund to support and formulate the lawsuit. According to local news outlet RIA Novosti, Pripachkin said that anyone interested can “chip in” to the crypto fund. Pripachkin added that a claim will also be filed against the companies’ shareholders if they have crypto wallets:

“We believe that if it turns out that the shareholders or managers of these companies own crypto wallets which they use for personal gain, using the position of their companies, they are subject to prosecution.”

Twitter Takes Aim At Dodgy ICOs But Throws A Blanket Ban On All Crypto Advertising

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Twitter has been toying with cryptocurrency for the last few weeks. First, rumours emerged that it would be following Facebook and Google in placing a ban on crypto advertising. Then, cryptocurrencies received a glowing recommendation from Twitter’s CEO, Jack Dorsey, who said Bitcoin will be the world’s – and Internet’s – single future currency.

However the toying came to an end with a snap as Twitter announced that it would indeed be putting up a rather large ban on cryptocurrency advertising. This is in line with Facebook and Google, who did the same previously for similar reasons too.

Twitter has said the prohibition will cover advertising of Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs), as well as token sales. This can be considered an attempt to stamp out fraudulent, deceptive and dodgy ICO scams which are currently

However, the ban goes further and bans ads by cryptocurrency exchanges and cryptocurrency wallet services, unless they are public companies listed on certain major stock markets.

It feels like an extra step by Twitter that is too harsh on the crypto community as a whole. There are even some that feel it is hypocritical from a platform that is full of other scams.

For the safety of users

Much like Facebook, which stated its banning policy would be “intentionally broad” to begin with, Twitter is taking aim at many business sectors within the cryptocurrency market place: ICOs, exchanges and wallet services are all in their crosshairs.

Just like Google, Twitter’s reasoning for the ban is the protection of its audience from deceptive content.

Google’s director of sustainable ads Scott Spencer said in a blog post that set out to explain the reasoning for the ad ban, after it was announced:

“As consumer trends evolve, as our methods to protect the open web get better, so do online scams. Improving the ads experience across the web, whether that's removing harmful ads or intrusive ads, will continue to be a top priority for us.”

Twitter was already taking measures to prevent crypto-related accounts from “engaging with others in a deceptive manner”, but faced calls to enact futher measures following bans from Facebook Inc. and Alphabet Inc. (Google’s parent company).

A broad blanket

The idea of curtailing scam ICOs from reaching a susceptible market should well be praised, and could be the right way to go about controlling the spread of deceptive crypto companies. However, as Zennon Kapron, director of the financial consultancy Kapronasia pointed out, it is not that simple:

“With the increasing number of ICOs coming to market, it is an impossible task for anyone, much less platforms like Twitter or Facebook, to keep on top of which ICOs and cryptocurrencies are genuine versus frauds.”

“Although certainly ICO advertising must have been a significant source of revenue for Twitter, the repercussions of fraudulent activities just weren’t worth the risk.”

The problem comes with Twitter taking a broad approach to all cryptocurrency advertising, banning wallets and exchanges too, unless they are listed on certain major stock markets.

There are not many services, legitimate or otherwise, that are listed on stock markets, which makes this blanket ban all the more damaging, but also helps explain its base. As Twitter cannot moderate and determine the validity of all exchanges and wallets, the ban that is has decided to issue has to be an overarching one.

Seeing some good, some seeing stupidity

With such a bold and broad attack on the burgeoning cryptocurrency space, reactions have been mixed. There are those who feel that scams in the market having an avenue to reach more susceptible people is dangerous.

Canceled Audit and Issuance of 300 Mln New Tokens: What’s Going on With Tether?

ANALYSIS

This article does not contain investment advice or recommendations. Every investment and trading move involves risk, you should conduct your own research when making a decision.

The inner workings of Tether have been under constant scrutiny and they’re in the spotlight again after issuing 300 mln new Tether tokens last week. To understand why Tether has been the subject of controversy for the past six months, one should remember how this cryptocurrency works.

According to Tether, USDT tokens are “backed’ by US Dollars in a 1:1 ratio. In the last six months, Tether have been constantly accused of not having sufficient fiat reserves to back the tokens that they periodically issue.

That’s why some industry critics paid special attention to the changes in a price of Bitcoin that have come after the issuance of new Tether tokens. Given that Tether is equal to one dollar, users have been buying various cryptocurrencies with Tether tokens. If these tokens are not backed by an equal amount of dollars, cryptocurrencies prices, in particular, may have been irregularly inflated.

Point proven again?

Casting aside speculation on the reserves backing Tether tokens, the issuance of 300 mln new USDT last week once again coincided with a six percent rebound in the price of Bitcoin.

This prompted fresh reactions from critics - with outspoken anonymous blogger Bitfinex’ed leading the charge with another heated tweet. Tether and sister company cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex threatened legal action against critics in December.

In January 2018, Pantera Capital chief investment officer Joey Krug expressed concerns that these rallies had led to Bitcoin rise to an all-time high in $20,000:

“This became more and more concerning, because every time the markets went down, you have seen the same thing happen. It could mean that a lot of the rally over December and January might not have been real.”

Tether refute claims, but still unaudited

Prompted by a subpoena from US regulators in December 2017, Tether reacquired the services of Friedmann LLP to conduct an audit on it’s US dollar reserves. However, a month later, news broke that the Tether had parted ways with their auditors, meaning no audit results were ever disclosed.

Big Investors Will Make ‘All Hell Break Loose’ In Crypto In 2018, Says Abra CEO

NEWS

Cryptocurrency investment app Abra’s CEO forecast that “all hell will break loose” in Bitcoin and altcoin markets this year in a fresh mainstream media interview March 28.

Speaking to Business Insider two weeks after the startup announced it had raised $40mln in new funding since October, CEO Bill Barhydt said western institutional money would begin to “dip its toes” into crypto assets in 2018.

In doing so, Barhydt continues a popular narrative that institutional investors ‘waiting’ for an opportune moment will transform Bitcoin and major altcoin price performance.

Bitcoin continued to sink towards fresh bi-weekly lows March 29, circling around $7600 according to Cointelegraph’s price tracker. Ethereum, which has lost 52% of its value in a month, is set to challenge $400 a coin.

“I talk to hedge funds, high net worth individuals, even commodity speculators. They look at the volatility in the crypto markets and they see it as a huge opportunity,” Barhydt nonetheless reports adopting a conspicuously bullish tone.

“Once that happens, all hell will break loose. Once the floodgates are opened, they're opened.”

Even cryptocurrency industry analysts have recently aired caution about short-term price prospects for Bitcoin.

Regular commentator Tone Vays had warned during recent highs that until resistance around $12,000 was cleared, prices would continue to post lacklustre performance - and could even drop lower than current levels.

For Barhydt, however, future potential takes prevalence over short-term volatility between $6000 and $12,000.

“There really is zero large-scale institutional money from the west in crypto right now. That is happening in Japan,” he continued.

“...We're getting closer and closer to real clarity in the West that it's OK putting half a percent of your assets into crypto.”

The price of Bitcoin Bull Tom Lee says that Hodl is in the middle of a fall in the market for later profits.

Join our community of 10,000 merchants on Hacked.com for only $ 39 per month. Thomas Lee, of Fundstrat, is emerging as a voice of reason for cryptocurrency investors, even as bitcoin continues to trade in depression. The former chief stock strategist at JPMorgan Chase is applying the lessons of the stock market to investment in bitcoins. Trying to time the market is "challenging" because Bitcoin, even in its short history, has proven to generate most of its annual returns in less than a period of two weeks a year, according to Lee in a note titled "Why HODL? " Lee also recently recommended that bitcoin investors buy the fall, and now adds, saying, "We believe that investors should be patient purchasers of bitcoins here." It may be easier said than done, since bitcoin is still lower in two -digital percentage year to date. Patience, however, is a virtue when it is invested, whether in the stock market or in cryptocurrencies. Lee said: "In general, the synchronization of the market in traditional capital investment is discouraged." He continued to provide the following example: "If an investor missed the best 10 days (for S & P 500) every year, the annualized return falls to 5.4 percent (ex-10 best), 9.2 percent." In other words, the argument to buy and hold in shares is the opportunity cost of missing the best 10 days. " The strategy is vital for investment in bitcoins. Suppose you try to synchronize the market and miss the best 10 days of the year of BTC. Meanwhile, you would be sacrificing up to 25% of annual returns, says Lee. Without the best 10 days of commercial performance, bitcoin records losses of 25% annually, according to the Fundstrat report obtained by CCN.

Cortesía: Fundstrat

'Positive catalysts' The pressure is real, and Bitcoin is struggling to surpass the USD 8,000 level, which as Fundstrat points out is the equilibrium price for BTC mining. But Bitcoin investors can breathe a sigh of relief. "Excessive regulatory risk generally keeps investors marginalized, but we see positive catalysts for Bitcoin later in 2018, including the clarification of regulatory hurdles." - Fundstrat analysts Earlier this month, Lee Fundstrat warned that altcoins, which had ridden Bitcoin's skirts during the march to register the leading cryptocurrency, are heading for a period of "purgatory" to unfold for 150-175 days before the minus currencies known resume their rise. Fundstrat presents an image of a cyclical market for altcoins, which is another parallel to broader stock markets. As for the leading currencies, Lee and his research team predict a "strong" 2018 led by "blockchains growth more established" and "upward for ETH and BTC."