{"id":230219,"date":"2018-03-08T08:21:44","date_gmt":"2018-03-08T06:21:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=230219"},"modified":"2018-03-08T08:21:44","modified_gmt":"2018-03-08T06:21:44","slug":"bitcoin-slumps-for-a-third-day-on-fresh-regulation-concern","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/banking\/230219\/bitcoin-slumps-for-a-third-day-on-fresh-regulation-concern\/","title":{"rendered":"Bitcoin slumps for a third day on fresh regulation concern"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Bitcoin slumped for a third day amid fears of a regulatory clampdown on cryptocurrency exchanges in Japan and the US, the world\u2019s most active markets for digital assets.<\/p>\n

The biggest virtual currency declined more than 3% in early Asia trading, extending its slump below $10,000, after Japan\u2019s Financial Services Agency ordered two exchanges to halt operations for a month and penalized four others.<\/p>\n

The FSA\u2019s announcement came just hours after a warning from the US Securities and Exchange Commission that many online trading platforms should register with the agency.<\/p>\n

Governments around the world are scrutinizing cryptocurrency exchanges amid concerns ranging from money laundering to cyberthefts to trading outages.<\/p>\n

While signs of tighter regulation tend to weigh on digital-asset prices, some observers have argued that more government oversight would make the nascent markets safer for the hordes of individual investors who piled during last year\u2019s speculative boom.<\/p>\n

News on Wednesday that hackers had caused \u201cirregular trades\u201d at Binance, one of the world\u2019s biggest cryptocurrency exchanges, highlighted the risks of using platforms that often operate in a legal grey zone.<\/p>\n

While Binance said that no funds had been stolen, the exchange also said it was unable to reverse some of the errant trades, without clarifying further.<\/p>\n

The clampdown in Japan, one of the few major countries to develop a licensing system for cryptocurrency exchanges, came a month after Tokyo-based Coincheck Inc. lost nearly $500 million in the biggest cyber theft of its kind.<\/p>\n

Two exchanges – FSHO and bit station – were instructed to halt operations for a month, the FSA said at a briefing in Tokyo, while GMO Internet Inc\u2019s GMO Coin, Tech Bureau Corp\u2019s Zaif, Bicrements and Mr. Exchange also face sanctions.<\/p>\n

The FSA ordered Coincheck to revise its management structure, improve anti-money laundering procedures and submit a report by March 22.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re not going to allow anything to move without regulatory oversight in that market,\u201d said Stephen Innes, head of trading for Asia Pacific at Oanda Corp.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe FSA are extremely sensitive to regulatory compliance.\u201d<\/p>\n

SEC Stance<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the US, the SEC said for the first time that platforms serving as venues for digital assets that are securities will need to register with the agency as a national exchange, or qualify for an exemption.<\/p>\n

Many platforms are referring to themselves as \u201cexchanges,\u201d which can give the \u201cmisimpression\u201d to investors that they are regulated or meet the regulatory standards of a national securities exchange, the SEC said in its statement, which was issued by the agency\u2019s trading and markets unit and its enforcement division.<\/p>\n

The enforcement division\u2019s involvement shows the potential pitfalls for digital-coin platforms that don\u2019t heed the SEC\u2019s warning to register with the agency: they could be sued and shut down.<\/p>\n

Exchanges that register with the agency have a high compliance burden, including being subject to inspections. They are also required to police their markets and follow SEC rules designed to ensure fair trading.<\/p>\n

Some of the largest cryptocurrency trading platforms, including Coinbase Inc\u2019s\u00a0GDAX, aren\u2019t registered as a exchange with the SEC, and instead have money transmission licenses with separate states.<\/p>\n

Gemini is regulated by the New York State Department of Financial Services as a trust company, according to its website, while Templum LLC is an affiliate to Liquid M Capital, which is registered as an alternative trading system with the SEC.<\/p>\n

Overstock.com Inc\u2019s tZero says it aims to be a fully-compliant trading platform.<\/p>\n

Coinbase said in a statement that it complies with all applicable laws. \u201cUnder the current SEC guidance, Coinbase and the GDAX exchange are exempt from registration requirements as they do not list assets that could be considered securities,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n

The company said it plans to continue discussing regulation of cryptocurrencies with authorities.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe applaud the SEC\u2019s statement,\u201d Gemini President Cameron Winklevoss said in a statement. \u201cThe trading of ICO tokens that are unregistered securities on unlicensed exchanges has gone on for far too long. This is dangerous for consumers and bad for the cryptocurrency ecosystem as whole.\u201d<\/p>\n

Binance Complaints<\/strong><\/p>\n

Users of Binance complained online that their accounts had been hacked, and took to social networks Reddit and Twitter to say that hackers had sold their smaller coins and purchased a cryptocurrency called Viacoin.<\/p>\n

The exchange said in a statement on its website that it had been the target of a \u201clarge scale phishing and stealing attempt.\u201d While it said \u201call funds are safe,\u201d Binance noted that it was unable to reverse some trades from accounts targeted by the hackers.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe again advise all traders to take special precaution to secure their account credentials,\u201d Binance said.<\/p>\n

Zhao Changpeng, the exchange\u2019s chief executive officer, didn\u2019t immediately respond to a text message seeking comment.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

Read: Massive drop in searches for Bitcoin on Google<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bitcoin slumped for a third day amid fears of a regulatory clampdown on cryptocurrency exchanges in Japan and the US, the world\u2019s most active markets for digital assets.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":219467,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[961],"tags":[5537],"class_list":["post-230219","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-banking","tag-bitcoin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230219","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=230219"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230219\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":230233,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230219\/revisions\/230233"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/219467"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=230219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=230219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=230219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}