It is no secret that the United States and China are at odds with each other. The two leading economies are taking aim. What is happening with the coronavirus, or more accurately the accusations about it, is just a continuation of what took place over the last couple years. What was a trade war is now an all out assault on each other. Tensions are certainly increasing as moves are made in an effort to harm the other.
The United States is also rather obvious about their stance on cryptocurrency. Thus far, a few members of the Administration came out against Bitcoin, having nothing positive to say about it.
We see the SEC is making a lot of news going after companies that raised money using ICOs in 2017. The SEC feels this is a security, applying a law that dates back to the 1930s.
A company that was in the cross hairs of this regulator was Telegram. One of the world's most popular messenger applications, the company raised $1.7 billion in an effort to create its own platform that would utilize their currency, the Gram. Named the Telegram Open Network (TON), it was going to be another layer which provided an enhanced experience for the 400 million Telegram users.
After roughly a year of battling the SEC, Telegram threw in the towel. The company simply could not fight the SEC any longer. Thus, a TON, from the company's perspective is dead.
This does not end the story. Being the world of open source, a couple community initiatives kept moving forwarded, filling the void that was left. These projects were already underway and were going to be open source alternatives to what Telegram was offering.
Now, it is announced that the Chinese community is releasing their own version of TON. This might be concerning to some since the founder of Telegram warned about the open initiatives.
In his farewell letter, Durov disavowed community-led initiatives. “Don’t trust them with your money or data. No present or past member of our team is involved with any of these projects. While networks based on the technology we built for TON may appear, we won’t have any affiliation with them and are unlikely to ever support them in any way,” he wrote.
https://decrypt.co/30587/telegram-crypto-china-ton-project
Did the SEC open the door for the Chinese to get involved? There is no way to tell and, since we are dealing with open source, the project might have taken place anyway. However, as we know, most people will end up using the company back project since they do not really care too much about decentralization.
Without that, the open source projects will be the only choices for the Telegram users. The challenge is that there will be no support from the company. For those already involved in cryptocurrency, this is nothing new. However, the masses have a much different viewpoint.
The bigger picture here is not so much Telegram itself. Instead, it is the stance the United States is taking to new technology. In its quest to protect the established financial system, the world is setting up to move past it. This is akin to standing back and not adopting the Internet for a decade or so.
With technology, once trailing, it is hard to catch up.
There is little doubt the United States is pushing crypto projects offshore. Silicon Valley became a major power center as we advanced into the technological age. Nevertheless, we might be seeing that shift elsewhere in the future.
It is rather interesting how clueless politicians can be. They get on the podium and tout their babble while their stance is doing the exact opposite to what they seek.
Of course, it is easy to see how defending the bankers, long term, is a losing proposition. Technology is going to destroy the existing banking system as we know it. Over the next couple decades, a completely new monetary system will emerge that is tied to technology.
Countries that are doing the bidding of the bankers, trying to protect what is in place, will find themselves falling behind very quickly.
Here we have an example of the regulators going after a project. Two weeks after closing down it down, the Chinese announce their own project.
Curious timing to say the least.
Perhaps there was an assist from the SEC. I wonder if this will appear on CNN.
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