Ripple, Ether and Bitcoin Cash Leave Bitcoin Behind

Ripple continued to make a splash this morning, gaining another 23% at the time of writing to hit $0.565 levels.

For those looking for a Bitcoin move, Bitcoin saw early losses reverse to move up 2.55% to $16,664.8 at the time of writing, though with the markets accustomed to double digit gains on an intraday basis, things are going to need to start moving for Bitcoin, if it’s to avoid yet another day in the shadow of its peers, with even Bitcoin Cash hitting an intraday $2,100 high before easing back to sub-$1900 levels.

Amongst the major cryptocurrencies that have made a move this week, Ethereum has also bounced, jumping to $700 levels, though the gains this morning are less impressive, up just 2.82% at the of writing.

All the news at the moment is surrounding the launch of the futures markets and the potential upsides for some of the altcoins including Litecoin. We have also been seeing a lot of news on a possible shift in the regulatory landscape for cryptocurrencies and Bitcoin in particular.

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The launch of the futures market and anticipated jump in institutional investor money will certainly have added pressure on regulators to explore ways in which the cryptomarket should be monitored going forward. The reality is however that, unless a regulator from the top 3-cryptomarkets begin to raise the prospects of regulatory oversight, the likely impact of regulatory oversight in smaller markets is likely to be limited at best. After all, in the digital world investors not only enjoy anonymity, but are also able to trade cryptocurrencies offshore.

Just this morning, news hit the wires that the South Korean government was planning to introduce regulations on Bitcoin and altcoins, with the regulations expected to be introduced before the end of the year.

Perhaps one of the most interesting proposals was to restrict trading on South Korean exchanges by foreigners looking to circumvent domestic trading restrictions. The most alarming will have been a proposed temporary suspension of investing in cryptocurrencies by both institutional and retail investors.

The good news for the cryptoworld is that the South Korean government is particularly mindful of the possible adverse impact that regulatory oversight can have on the markets and potential losses for both retail and institutional investors.

For this reason, the South Koreans have looked to focus on finding ways to protect cryptocurrency investors as opposed to shut down the South Korean market that is by no means small.

The very fact that the major cryptocurrencies were in positive territory at the time of writing, in spite of the news from South Korea suggests that some degree of protection for investors is a welcome move. When considering the exponential gains this year and the market caps of the respective cryptocurrencies, to have zero protection could ultimately leave the markets in disarray and cleaning up the mess from a burst bubble.

Perhaps if governments had taken a more pragmatic approach during the Dot.Com era, things would have turned out differently. There was certainly a lack of protection back then.

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