Waking up all the time to this crypto regulatory warfare taking place keeps ruining my morning coffee. Today is no different. 1st world problems, I know.
When it rains it pours. The Trump administration has always had a very firm stance against China and the most recent event reaffirms that. Trump signed an executive order barring U.S. investors from buying securities that are owned/related to the Chinese military-controlled companies (pretty vague I know). There was some confusion regarding the finer details of this executive order amongst U.S. investors.
In efforts to clarify things, The Treasury Department published further guidance. It stated that these restrictions on Chinese investment would apply to investors in ETFs (exchange-traded funds), index funds, and subsidiaries of the Chinese companies related to the Chinese military. Mike Pompey (The Secretary of State) said:
This should allay concerns that U.S. investors might unknowingly support (Chinese military-controlled companies) via direct, indirect, or other passive investments.
As crypto becomes more mainstream the more we find these issues to be of concern. This issue is of particular interest to Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH). It’s well known that the majority of these cryptocurrencies are mined within China. Therefore, they are arguably controlled by China. There are massive U.S. crypto funds offering crypto investment both for BTC and ETH. The big question, will this affect those institutional crypto options for BTC and ETH?
The U.S. government (via the SEC) has declared BTC and ETH non-securities, but if there is speculation that these crypto investments could still come under fire. We all know that governments shoot first and ask questions later, so this is just another regulatory uncertainty taking place for Crypto as a whole.
This is just one of many regulatory attacks taking place in crypto right now. For now, things for BTC and ETH seem to be fine, but that can change in a blink of an eye. Ask Ripple how they know.
We will be keeping a close eye on this development and will update if anything breaking happens regarding BTC and ETH with this new executive order.
