Topic: "ICO ban" in China: not about ICO, but about crypto at all (Read 2157 times)

with the prohibition of ico in the country, there must be a background that is the reason the government did it. all done to protect his people from irresponsible parties.

ICO is not the key to victory for Bitcoin. ICO is just a facility to add new coins in crypto. All countries are doing it, and this is a sign that belief in crypto is real.
If China forbids ICO, then this is a big problem for the freedom of crypto in China.
I do not care about China, just so many people panicked so BTC haga depressed.
This world does not belong to China.

old story repeats itself. there are many people do not like Bitcoin. if anyone knows jp Morgan, would know the controversy he made, he said he did not like cryptocurrency but he turned out to invest in ZCASH.

It's hard to say. The Chinese government is known for its cryptic pronouncements, as well as for its waffling -- anyone remember when China was going to ban Bitcoin ~3 years ago?

According to at least one Chinese official, even the ICO ban is just temporary: https://twitter.com/sytaylor/status/905867039935430656

So I wouldn't worry too much about their stance towards cryptocurrencies in general. I think they just wanted to calm the market down while they mull over regulations.

so how soon do we also expect Bitcoin Price to rise up to at least 5000USD this year???

There is a big possibility that due to some lobbying from interested and big names in China, it might later on change its mind on ICO and would come up with a rigid regulations covering the said platform. I am sure that China would not want to be left behind with cryptocurrency maybe they just need to time to adjust and tweak everything. This is an optimistic view of things. The pessimistic view is that China has its own global agenda and cryptocurrency has no part on that vision.

A dificult situaton with btc ethereum ... are be only to half november,  all (10 alt coin in world rank index will be to high) . china traider looked for ideas for working !

China like the US and other governments must find ways to incorporate the vast potential of the blockchain revolution. It is the evolution from the trusted third party system, that has been part of the traditional basis for transactions, to a global system of equal participation.

I am dizzy reading the the original post and I realize that this is the side-effect when we are dealing with a country like China...there is so much in there that can sometimes be beyond comprehension for guys who are not in China or who are not educated on their way of life or culture.

We have already seen how the China Effect can affect the whole cryptocurrency market but soon this can be the thing of the past if we allow new big markets to open up. The bigger is the market the lesser is the power and influence of China, that is for sure. As of now, we are still under its magical power so anything they say, they do and they don't do in relation to cryptocurrency can have ramifications in the market and we are all affected.

I am predicting though that soon China will come up with their own strict rules and regulations on ICO projects and one has to pass the rigid tests before they can do business in China and offer coin/token to anyone interested. They just want a total stop for now so they can have the time to sort things out. Be ready for China to get back with a big revenge in the world of crowdfunding.

The legality of competitively proof-of-work mined coins are not at all afflicted by recent events.

So prior rulings about the legality of Bitcoin are irrelevant to the issue about ICOs.

The difference compared to prior Chinese regulatory actions, is that this appears to have been a coordinated event amongst regulators in many nations.

And the ETH ICO madness was entirely out-of-control and risking naive investors’ funds in a plethora of scams. It became a new Xerox copy ICO every day scam. The nations had no choice but to act. And surely the SEC and other nations will follow. I think Asia acted first because their governments are less democratic and more authoritarian, so they can act quicker. The democratic nations will follow because their regulators have the same responsibility to their citizens. The wheels just move slower in the democratic nations. Asia is finely oil machine that is more efficient than the West now.

The issue is not exclusive to China. China, Canada, Russia, South Korea, and Singapore have warned about coming enforcement action. The SEC already recently warned in the context of The DAO. Obviously the recent events are coordinated between regulators in all these nations including probably the SEC.

Click here for a longer explanation of why proof-of-work mined tokens are not investment securities and thus not afflicted by recent events.

The above link also discusses Ethereum’s ETH, Ethereum ICOs, and others.

It is also very important to note that pre-existing ICO-issued tokens, are illegal to trade and can be delisted from exchanges. Your home country can make it illegal for you to trade them. The above link explains this is more detail.

Please stop spreading the incorrect information, implying that ICOs will come back or that pre-existing ICOs can still be traded. Most people do not want to go to jail or suffer fines. Even if they regulate ICOs, these will only be tradeable on registered exchanges and will not be spendable as cryptocurrencies (i.e. not allowed to be traded decentralized). Thus these new regulated ICOs will not be very useful. It will not be the same.

Many shady exchanges and their largest traders are likely to suffer fines and threats of criminal prosecutions. Today is only the beginning of a massive global crackdown. The gears may move somewhat slowly but over the coming year there will be massive changes to the crypto ecosystem. All the hard-headed will have their fingertips burned up to their armpits as necessary for authorities to stop the rapid proliferation of investment securities scams.


There will be no greater fools to sell the ICOs to, when they are not legal.

The ICO scam model depends on selling to newbies who come in and believe these 100s of Xerox copy ICOs each have a chance to become the next Bitcoin or Ethereum.

Nobody is going to speculate on illegal ICOs, because there will be no mass market for them, thus no way to hype them.

And it is not just USA and China that are banning ICOs. Same as was the case for FATCA (a USA only law), it became enforced in every country in the world, because the USA threatened to penalize every nation that did not comply.

We’ve already got Canada, Russia, China, Singapore, South Korea, and the USA warning about ICOs.

You’d have to be blind to argue this is not a critical mass.

ICOs have been abused and thanks to developers who are only concerned by their pockets all they do is have a nice graphics then create a token or a coin based on the existing platforms and also investors too blinded by their own selfish interest of looking for when it will be listed so that they will make abnormal profit in as much as I am not happy about this, because it affects the entire crypto industry as well as the legitimate ICOs with plan to solve a problem, government of China have said its own and the rest is on us the active participants on how we react to it.

I don't know about that, but maybe you can hit this one : https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/i-am-an-chinese-and-i-know-what-happened-and-i-will-buy-more-crypto-assets-2150624
He is one of Chinese people who don't believe in government policy, and he says the China's government never do something permanent.

Do you include Ethereum in this assessment? Technically, Ethereum was an ICO. The funds were raised in BTC and investors were compensated with ETH tokens from the genesis block. Thereafter, though, ETH has only been created by mining.

I imagine that if the Ethereum ICO were happening today, it would be covered by the PBOC's new prohibition. The founders are probably lucky they got in on the ICO craze so early, though. I doubt they plan to ban ETH...

China will follow the same basic principle which is designed to protect investors from issuers who make wild claims and then issue tokens and sell them. That is what the recent action is about in many countries.

All the securities regulators from the G20 nations have been coordinating with the SEC on this. That is why all these actions are coming at the same time from many nations.


Did you read at the link that was provided?


If you think China is going to ban mining, when they are the #1 in mining, what are you smoking?

China’s statement is about the risk for investors when a centralized issuer is making claims and issuing tokens, i.e. ICOs.

Their statement has nothing to do with mining, for the reasons stated at the link above.

This will all be clarified and the proof-of-work coins will recover. The ICO-issued coins are doomed, because suddenly many countries are making these enforcements against ICOs and will not allow exchanges to trade already illegally ICO-issued tokens (same as what China has announced).

But since even legally issued ICO tokens (i.e. they will have to be registered and have strict disclosures and restrictions on trading) will not be legal to trade except on registered exchanges, then they will be illegal to use as cryptocurrencies, which by definition are spent (traded) decentralized. Thus ICO-issued cryptocurrencies are dead.

ok, i briefly got about SEC (and ICO-related tokens, referred settmit post is good), but Howey's Test (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SEC_v._W._J._Howey_Co.) for PoW/PoS-mined crypto (BTC,LTC, any other) is not an argument, at least, for PBC. And i still didn't get about "no issuer" in BTC: mining is still mining, block reward is still block reward, block finder is still block finder (even if it's a pool). So we have a currency issue activity, and the PBC statement:

"As of the date of this announcement, all types of currency issuance financing activities shall cease immediately"

The third part of initial post "Executive summary / TLDR" is QUESTION about mining/minting ban in China. And there is no clear answer yet.

It's really important because of China also one of the biggest bitcoin or cryptocurrency user too.
So i would like to join and ask: is there any native chinese speaker (awesome if with money-laws-in-china background) who can clarify this text ?

Agreed on the bold one, but we must also remember that China also one of the biggest bitcoin or cryptocurrency user too. If China really banned crypto i can't imagine how red the price of all cryptocoin, that must be a big swing happened. Any Chinese people here can translate that news properly to us ?

It was all explained in great detail 2 days before the collapse.

Everything that is happening was predicted in advance.

Here is another summary.

1. "This only affects ICO-issued tokens."
2. "Those tokens which were honestly issued by proof-of-work are unaffected and remain legal." (... to many statements in one sentence)

No offends, but can you reasonably (i.e. referring to laws & practice) prove this statements or this is just an your opinion against PBC public statement?

Incorrect.

In proof-of-work, no one is the issuer. Click the link to understand why.

Meanwhile I am busy looking for more fiat to catch all those coins they are throwing in the market. Shall I include my rent and grocery money?

OP, do not worry about such things. The government will always try to control everything. What we have to do now is to keep buying the dips now and be rich later. We have the panic sellers to thank for this opportunity.