In January 2009, Bitcoin was founded by the still-unknown, always-mysterious Satoshi Nakamoto. Despite the fact Bitcoin has never had a company behind it, any executives, a board of directors, or anything like that – things that many modern cryptocurrencies have backing them to increase the chances of success and pile-drive failure’s probability of occurrence into the proverbial ground – it is currently the most valuable cryptocurrency.
Not only that – Bitcoin resulted in a wave of cryptocurrencies being founded. Today, financial markets are populated with more than a few thousand unique cryptocurrencies.
Why?
All thanks to the father of all cryptocurrencies: Bitcoin.
Regulation Hasn’t Hit The United States Cryptocurrency Market – Yet
Virtually everybody in the world of business knows that too many regulations can cause harm to businesses, organizations, entities, and the people involved with them. However, a complete lack of regulation often fails to appropriatley protect consumers and others involved with whatever’s not being regulated.
As such, cryptocurrencies, namely Bitcoin, could soon face a wake of regulations enacted by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, the all-powerful government board responsible for everything related to financial instruments and other stores of monetary value.
Unfortunately – Or Fortunately, Depending On How You View It – It Could Come Soon
On Wednesday, February 28, 2018, the Wall Street Journal reported that the Securities and Exchange Commission had successfully sought and received the green light for information requests and subpoenas related directly to companies inherently linked to the quickly-growing initial coin offer market.
Many initial coin offerings, which new cryptocurrencies use to gather support for their public release, fail, and are forced to return the funding they sought to investors. However, because there currently isn’t much – I take that back… there isn’t any as of now – regulation surrounding the practice of initial coin offerings, making sure that investors get their hard-earned, well-thought-out sums of money back is difficult.
As a matter of fact, some organizations backing initial coin offerings have failed to return portions – sometimes hefty, hefty portions – of their once-confident investors’ sums of money.
Don’t Be Scared – Such Instances Are Anomaly, Not Commonplace
In all lines of business, there are bad proverbial apples, and good ones. Such ICOs that end badly are the exception, not the rule.
Investors shouldn’t be scared of these chances. However, regulations will make the world of ICOs and cryptocurrencies, in general, a much safer place, even though trading fees will likely be slightly higher.
Dil Bole Oberoi
