HAS GOOGLE DESTROYED BITCOIN?

THE PRICE OF BITCOIN HAS FALLEN TO $7K AS $60BILLION WIPED OFF CRYPTOCURRENCY IN 24 HOURS!

Due to negative sentiment that Googles ban and increased talk of reactionary regulation, the price of bitcoin has suffered an overnight fall. Ethereum and other crypto currencies are not left out as theyve followed bitcoins lead, having now sunk to its lowest price since December last year.

This slide down in price is believed to be as a response to the news that Google would banned advertisements of crypto currencies, initial coin offerings (ICOs), as well as crypto currency exchanges, trading advice and wallets come June this year.

SO HAS GOOGLE DESTROYED BITCOIN?

Bitcoin was on Thursday opened at £5,862.42 which is $8,196.90, down on its Wednesday opening price of £6,553.61 which is equivalent to $9,144.15.

According to analysts, bitcoin slide down in price hours ago amid fears from Googles new advertising policies.

As of 7.19am GMT of yesterday, BTC was exchanging hands for £5,658.66 which is equivalent to $7,911.99, down 3.48 percent, according to CoinDesk.

On Wednesday, Google announced a lot of changes to its advertising ecosystem, and the most crucial among them was the updated policies on cryptocurrency.

According to Google:

This year, we updated several policies to address ads in unregulated or speculative financial products like binary options, cryptocurrency, foreign exchange markets and contracts for difference (or CFDs).
We also updated our gambling ads policies to address new methods of gambling with items that have real-world value (eg, skins gambling).

Google claims to have taken down more than 3.2 billion ads which violated its policies in 2017 alone.
Of the ads were sensationalised newsy headlines on marketing material and other malicious clickbait ads by scammers who have tried to sell diet pills and weight-loss scams.
Quoting from Google: We suspended more than 7,000 AdWords accounts for tab.

According to Chris Keshian who is the managing partner and CEO of $APEX Token Fund: Crackdowns on cryptocurrencies are the best way to weed out irresponsible and fraudulent ICOs and place greater focus on cases against unregistered persons acting as agents, brokers, and investment professionals in the cryptocurrency space.

In a blog post of Tuesday, google indicated that it will change its existing financial product restriction list from June, blacklisting ad content "including though not limited to ICOs, cryptocurrency wallets, cryptocurrency exchanges, and cryptocurrency trading advice."

Further saying that "Such ads will no longer be allowed to serve,” However, the restriction will be applicable to both to Google's proprietary and affiliated advertisement platforms.
Interesting to know is that the move came just a month after Facebook announced that it would enforce a policy to ban advertisements involving bitcoin and ICOs in bid to prevent cryptocurrency-related promotions that may deceive investors.

Though Google has not explicitly explained reasons of its ban, this new policy comes at a time when regulators from the United States have been increasingly scrutinizing cryptocurrency projects that tout unrealistic investment opportunities and promote themselves to investors on the internet.

This recent moves by Google and Facebook which are two of the world's largest internet and advertising platforms, are also in line with the United States regulators' effort at both state and federal levels in cracking down ICOs which appear dubious in the government's view.

Furthermore, the search engine giant also said that aggregator and affiliates using Google ads will no longer be allowed to host promotional material related to cryptocurrencies. That is to say, Google would effectively disable crypto related advertising on its own website as well as using its ad products by third-party websites.

This ban is a move to effectively stamp out scams in the crypto world. And certainly, it will also impact legitimate or regulated companies offering cryptocurrency services.

Googles director of sustainable ads Scott Spencer Speaking to CNBC, was quoted saying: >"The move as a precautionary measure to safeguard consumers."

"We dont have a crystal ball to know where the future is going to go with cryptocurrencies, but we've seen enough consumer harm or potential for consumer harm that its an area that we want to approach with extreme caution."

Currently, typing in a search query of Bitcoin serves an ad to buy the cryptocurrency at the top of the search results page, though that will change once the new policies take hold.

Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are notoriously volatile and governments are trying to clamp down on them.

Few months ago, India has said it doesnt consider Bitcoin to be legal tender, China is increasingly cracking down on digital currencies, and Korea not left out, as its planning a bill to ban all domestic cryptocurrency trading.

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