While the last few months saw an amazing increase in the price of Bitcoin and other crypto's it may very well have been in anticipation of Facebook's Libra entering the market place. However, that project is receiving some serious push back from regulators and jurisdictions all over the world which could easily account for the drop in prices over the last 24-48 hours.
On Wednesday, Wired reported, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell told the House committee that he has “many serious concerns” about Facebook’s pivot to finance in the arenas of privacy, money laundering, consumer protection, and the stability of the global financial structure. He added that “The process of addressing these concerns should be a patient and careful one, not a sprint,” and that the Fed was working with other agencies and foreign central banks to understand Libra’s possible impact. - (https://gizmodo.com/facebooks-libra-project-is-getting-hammered-from-all-sides)
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell at a House Financial Services committee meeting on July 10, 2019.
Photo: Susan Walsh (AP)
Powell’s concerns come on the heels of similar comments from top regulators in Europe and Asia. On Sunday, Benoît Cœuré, an executive at the European Central Bank, described Libra as a “wake-up call” to regulators, saying it could not operate in a “void” outside the typical structure of central banks.... Powell also confirmed that he had met with Facebook representatives in the months ahead of the Libra announcement, part of the tech company’s global tour of meetings with financial authorities. Apparently, many regulators left those meetings unsatisfied. Beyond the EU, regulators in the UK, Japan, and Singapore have called for greater scrutiny of Libra in recent weeks. -Wired.com
Libra is facing some significant regulatory hurdles that is having a cooling effect on the crypto market space. In the past I've expressed my concern about the price of Steem in relation to the movement that Bitcoin and others took over the last three months. While the price of Steem failed to take advantage of the gains, it was definitely hit with the drops, falling to 82nd spot in coinmarketcap.com's list of top 100 crypto currencies as it dropped over 10% today hitting $0.2776USD.
Screen shot from coinmarketcap.com
I've been reading others who are commenting that some whales are powering down and selling steem, along with Steemit Inc, which is driving prices down. While this may be true, I cannot ignore the fact that the active user base on this blockchain continues to drop at significant rates, 63.5% over the last 18 months. This tells me there is some foundational issues that needs to be addressed or we may witness this blockchain failing.
https://steemit.com/statistics/@arcange/steem-statistics-20190710-en
I asked a witness the other day about his thoughts regarding the failure of Steem to keep up with what Bitcoin was doing. His response:
"BTC pump is going strong for a few more weeks and then holders of that realize they can buy 30-40k steem for 1 btc." -
In my view, this is not an appropriate response regarding the price differences, especially given the hit that cryptos took with the news I shared above. While HF21 looms as well as the long anticipated Smart Media Tokens (SMT), some people are hoping that these changes will be enough to draw people back to the blockchain. Foundational changes need to take place to accomplish that shift and price is one of them. There were many people making a living working on the blockchain and that cannot happen with the price deflated like it has been for nearly a year.
While there has been a lot of discussions by users and witnesses alike, we are at a cross road. If this project manages to resolve the issues that is scaring users away, we could see significant price increases and a flood of new users to the blockchain. However, if HF21 and SMT fails to draw hundreds of thousands or millions of people to the blockchain, we may be discussing the protocol for shutting down and turning off the lights. I for one, came here to secure my thoughts about specific topics. I was attracted to the blockchain as there was a low risk of being censored. Little did I realize that there was actually a risk of the blockchain failing, however small that risk may be.
With all that said, I will reiterate again for the record
People cannot eat zero's and ones, no matter what order they are stored or transmitted. People also cannot eat gold, silver or fiat currency. The world will soon face a financial and economic crises that will break the majority of the institutions that people depend on for their very survival. When those institutions fail, billions of people are going to be in a world of hurt. Cryptos may save the day for a little while, but I'm not confident that even they will take over and help people pay for goods and services.
I still highly recommend that people reconnect with Mother Earth and learn how to grow your own food, collect and treat your own water, build your own shelters, make your own cloths and build a very intimate relationship with our mother. Use your fiat, gold, silver or crypto's to get the tools, training and experience you need to fulfill these goals, but don't depend on them. If you think there is going to be food, water or shelter to buy, you will be making a tactical mistake that could cost you your life.
With the news of Facebook's Libra coming into the market, people got all excited. But this project has a lot of hurdles to clear and if they get it off the ground, the corporate takeover will be well underway. I predict that the multi-national corporations will attempt to take over the governments of the world and when that happens, we have major problems. If you are still on grid, I highly recommend that you start going through my blog to educate yourself on how you can take full responsibility and accountability for your life.
The recent moves in crypto prices could very well be associated with Libra. If that is the case, then we should be watching that project like hawks. It could be the beginning of the end if they get that beast off the ground. Don't blink!