In the last several weeks, the fear amongst the Bitcoin community has definitely risen. Although a continued trend down on the dollar index has given Bitcoin a major uptrend along with the precious metals, the actions from governments and people of prominence have spooked many cryptocurrency investors out of the space. This is not the first time that the cryptocurrency market has been assaulted, and it won’t be the last. Here are a few reasons why the market has fallen in the last few weeks.
First, in a Delivering Alpha conference on September 12th, 2017, Jamie Dimon, the infamous JP Morgan Chase CEO, elaborated on his comments from years prior. He said he would fire any employee trading Bitcoin for two reasons: because it is stupid and it’s against company policy, both of which are dangerous. Jamie went on to elaborate further and said that Bitcoin is a fraud and that it’s worse than tulip bulbs. It’s pretty interesting to hear someone of diamond status bashing Bitcoin as a fraud. The level of fraud that JP Morgan Chase has been involved with is in the billions, and the list goes on and on. JP Morgan Chase was found guilty of foreclosing on the wrong homes and evicting innocent families, selling investments to customers that the bank bet against, and doing business with embargoed countries, such as Iran, Sudan, Cuba, and Liberia. Other lawsuits include shoddy loan servicing, illegal robo-signing, faulty foreclosure processing, and check sequencing. The check sequencing case resulted in a $110 million fine. In the check sequencing case, it was found that the bank went back in the past to process debits and credits on checks that were not in sequential order, which would result in customers running out of money. The bank could then charge for insufficient funds and all sorts of overdraft fees.
In the last few days, the awaited bump in the dollar has pushed Bitcoin and the precious metal prices downward. One reason for the bump in the dollar was more political propaganda from House Speaker Paul Ryan and the GOP about tax cuts. They claim that there will be more details during the week of September 25th. If they do actually have details on a tax cut, as I see it, the deficit will only get worse. The GOP said months ago that they would have tax details, and they still don’t today. Between supposed tax cuts, Fed jawboning, and hurricanes, the level of excuses is higher than ever. Hurricanes give the Fed the excuse to not raise interest rates, even though they were not going to. The PCE deflator keeps falling month after month, and hurricanes now give them an excuse to not raise.
News continuously comes out of China about capital controls. China wants to monitor everything that comes in and out of their country, including Bitcoin. They do not want to lose yuan out of the country, which has prompted fears of Bitcoin exchanges being shut down. Early in the day, news broke on one of China’s largest online exchanges halting all trading. BTC China will stop accepting new account registrations, but according to Matt Roszak, that exchange will be operating again by the end of the year. Roszak, an investor and Chairman of Digital Commerce in Washington, said that China will provide licensure for a few exchanges that conform to the government standards and will help to propel the industry forward. China also announced the timeline for shutting down Bitcoin exchanges altogether, which had a massive impact on price over the last few days. Once the dust settles, the dollar will continue its flight lower, Hong Kong and other countries will pick up the slack in the Bitcoin world.