Refreshing our minds to the happenings in the crypto-markets back in early January and February, we found that our favorite digital assets were literally on fire and doing wonderful gains continually in 24 hour periods. Bitcoin (BTC) had just touched $20,000 on December 17th on the eve of Bitcoin futures being offered by both CBOE and the CME group. The total market capitalization in Januray was at its highest at over $826 Billion.
Looking at other digital assets, Ethereum (ETH) had just peaked at $1,400 in mid January. XRP had also peaked at $3.65 also in January. Bitcoin Cash (BCH) had been believed to be gunning for Bitcoin when it peaked at $4,000 after being added on Coinbase. But all this action was short lived. Around January 22nd, the South Korean government hinted at banning of crypto trading using anonymous accounts. The ban took effect on the 30th of January. Then there was FUD that the country would ban all crypto related activities like their close neighbors, China. The crypto markets have never been the same since then.
We can not say that South Korea was the main cause of the crypto-markets spiraling out of control. No. What we can say is that the South Korean traders were the bulk of the crypto-markets back then. With the country planning to finalize crypto and blockchain legislation sometime this year, the volumes in the crypto-markets might resume to levels close to $800 Billion in market capitalization.
Everyone is waiting for the SEC comments on the CBOE ETF sometime in mid August. The likelihood of an approval are slim given that the SEC has rejected all ETFs that have been filed thus far including the Winklevoss Twins sponsored Bats ETF. What many traders are forgetting, is that there is a lot of regulatory progress in other regions of the world including South Korea, Malta, Philippines, Australia, Indonesia, Thailand, just to name a few. With more and more countries embracing crypto and blockchain technology, a Bitcoin (BTC) bull run will not solely depend on the SEC approving a CBOE ETF.
On factor that will contribute to a Bitcoin Bull run is the passing of crypto and blockchain regulation in South Korea. This will bring in more volume from the country as was the case in December last year and early January.
It is worth noting that, the markets tanked once regulation and crypto bans started making headlines in Japan, South Korea and China. Therefore, these three countries are a major factor to the revival of the crypto-markets.