Overview of publications: insider trading and petitions in South Korea, Telegram increases the volume of the closed round of ICO to $ 850 million, Venezuela offers discounts to early investors in the crypto currency.
South Korea - the queen of cryptscandals
South Korea's financial regulator has officially banned anonymous transactions, now traders store reformatted virtual accounts into accounts with real names within a month. This measure is part of a new regulatory system that was announced by South Korea in late December.
In response to severe restrictions, South Korean citizens registered two petitions: asking them not to take away the dream of a good life, making a real currency, and demanding the removal of Choi Hyun Shik from the post of chairman of the Financial Supervision Service of South Korea (FSS).
As of January 17, the first petition overcame the threshold of 200,000 signatures, and now the government is legally obliged to respond to claims within 30 days.
One of the biggest fears is the complete ban on cryptotrading, which was prematurely announced by the Justice Ministry of South Korea. However, on Wednesday, the chairman of the South Korean Fair Trade Commission (KFTC) Kim San Joe said that the authorities do not have legal authority for such measures.
On Thursday, South Korea again did not allow to catch attention: it became known that government members invested in crypto-currencies and sold them right before the announcement of regulations, which provoked a large-scale correction of the market. At the moment, several civil servants are accused of insider trading, FSS is investigating the case. Of the good news of South Korea - the world championship of the Upbit stock exchange, which became the largest by the daily turnover, despite the regulations.
Mystery of a billion: everything that is known about ICO Telegram
While the official website does not show information about the new TON platform, scammers have already tried to take advantage of the situation and offered to buy the project's tokens, appearing as a support team. However, it will be difficult to compete with the real ICO Telegram.
According to Bloomberg, the new platform of Pavel Durov is going to attract a total of $ 1.2 billion: $ 600 million during the closed token and another $ 600 million in the public round, which will be held in March. And while the crypto community and media discussed ambitiousness and risks, new sensational messages appeared: due to the huge demand, Telegram already refuses investors and increases the amount of the closed round of ICO from $ 600 million to $ 850 million.
From the strip of light shedding light - the white paper of the project, which appeared in the Telegram channels and has a chance to prove to be genuine. The author specifies the brother of Pavel - Nikolay Durov, the document describes the principle of the TON blockchain, which will "process millions of transactions per second".
Venezuela's oil crypto currency will be available in mid-March
The government, under the leadership of President Nicolas Maduro, announced the presale of the national digital currency Petro, which will last for a month and plans to raise $ 1.3 billion. Then, the sale of tokens to private individuals will begin.
Maduro has already called on the countries of Latin America, including Bolivia, Cuba, Ecuador, Nicaragua and Nevis, to free themselves from the yoke of the dollar and move to petro. And on Friday it became known that the delegation of the Government of Venezuela, located in Qatar, offers Qatar the "discussed discounts" for Petro as an early investor.
It is assumed that Qatar, which has undergone economic blockade from Saudi Arabia since mid-2016, will invest in petro even before the February pre-election. The decision to launch the national digital currency was announced by the President of Venezuela on December 3.
Chinese companies tear with the blockchain industry
The National Internet Finance Association of China, which previously supported the ICO ban, warned of a new kind of "primary offers". During the IMO (Initial Miner Offerings), the mining equipment is sold and assigned to a specific token. The association called this model "disguised ICO", warning of risks and calling for "rational investment".
In the light of developing regulation, many Chinese companies are rushing to break with the blockchain. On January 14, Kaifa Technology, which produced 150,000 mining installations this January, said that it was only "investigating the blockchain technology" and did not receive a large profit. The company Shuangma Cement, which was going to develop blockchain technology in partnership with IDG Capital and Circle, on Sunday also said that it will not engage in any blockchain services and is not associated with these companies.
Shanghai U9 Game posted a statement, saying that it only published the news of the crypto industry on its website, and stressed that it was not going to raise funds for the blockchain project. Meanwhile, the Chinese mining giant Bitmain Technologies continued expansion, opening another branch, this time in Canada.
Cryptorecords of the week
Correction this week spared no one. Bitcoin, aired and Ripple started on Monday with a mark of $ 13,749, $ 1,366 and $ 1.87, respectively, and dropped by 30-50% to the "black environment". On Thursday, cryptory began to recoup, and the top three overcame personal psychological barriers of $ 10,000 for bitcoin, $ 1,000 for airtime and $ 1 for Ripple.
Bitcoin cache, cardano and lightcoin and other altcoins also rose by 15-35%. For bitcoin, all the crypto-brothers were happy, and the total market capitalization of the crypto-currency increased by $ 159 billion after falling to $ 415 billion on Wednesday.