Recent FUD surrounding South Korea is what had a devastating blow to the whole cryptocurrency market. On January 14th, South Korean Officials issued a statement surrounding anonymous accounts. They want all South Koreans to have their identities attached to their accounts or face fees and penalties. They need to do this by the end of January or they will be penalized. This comes after the Korean Justice Minister issued a statement that planned to ban all cryptocurrency trading and exchanges. This was later clarified by the South Korea Finance Minister as the government trying to regulate exchanges and not ban trading. The South Korean government has also made clear they intend to come to a conclusion after all ministries agree on a degree of regulation. In recent months before this, the Financial Services Commission said it would propose a ban to the controversial crowdfunding practice known as initial coin offerings (ICOs).
Coinmarketcap also dropped South Korea’s exchanges on January 8th which also caused major FUD.
After all this FUD the last couple months, we can certainly agree that 2018 will be full of much more fear. The US government has already issued many statements and warnings surrounding cryptocurrency and will continue to come down on the crypto market. As cryptocurrency garners more attention, more governments will start to make way for regulations and rules. This does not come as a surprise, but perhaps a much-needed step in weeding out the fake cryptos from the current market. There probably won’t be any banning of cryptocurrencies, just rules and regulations to follow.