Bitcoin got a jump, spiking more than $400 to about a two-week high and nearing $7,000. The reasons for the boost were not all that clear on Wednesday (Aug. 22), with a following dip from those levels. However, even at around $6670, it is down more than 65 percent from the peak.
Much of the crypto news came in from Asia. In Thailand, headlines showed that the country’s central bank will issue its own digital currency. The currency to be released by the Bank of Thailand, according to The Next Web, is based off an open source blockchain that the site said is “eerily reminiscent of Ripple,” the banking ledger from Ripple Labs. The goal of the Central Bank Digital Currency is to help speed payments between banks. The currency is built on the distributed ledger technology (DLT) platform Corda, which is developed by R3, a blockchain firm in New York.
Beyond that, cryptos got a thumbs down from several avenues. In China, the messaging app WeChat has banned accounts that focus on crypto events and crypto news. Reports said that those accounts run the gamut of digital currency trading, from initial coin offerings (ICOs) to blockchain, as the media content runs afoul of recent trading and other rules put in place. WeChat itself noted that “a Tencent official said that some public accounts are suspected of publishing ICO and virtual currency trading hype information, violating the ‘Interim Provisions on the Development of Public Information Services for Instant Messaging Tools.’”
Elsewhere in China, the district of Chaoyang in Beijing (the capital, of course) has a notice up in public places, such as malls and offices, that bans crypto events. Publications stated that both moves — the public ban and the WeChat ban — show how new efforts are coming to bear on the space, even in the wake of a ban on ICOs and trading that came this past fall.
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