Update 180331: The YouTube information dropped substantially. This is an indication that the interest and enthusiasm dropped on a global scale. The price of BTC and other cryptos like Ethereum dropped again. When Bitcoin goes down, everything goes down. Ethereum (ETH) is a major crypto that drives the ICO market, it is a ICO platform where smartcontracts and tokens can be created quickly. In the last periode of March, major social media companies (Google, Facebook, Twitter) are or will be blocking ICO advertising. Also MailChimp will take action. If you promote cryptos, you account will be blocked. This process of blocking new ICO’s is called the ICO lock. More on this later.
Another process that is going on relates to news that enters the market. A lot of news is really no news at all, it is not backed by anything substantial. The problem is, it is one of the many forces that drives the market. It can go up or down. Most of the news at this moment has a negative bias and seems to be manipulated. This process is called FUD flooding. More on this later.
The good part of ICO locking: CRAP and SCAM tokens will find it more difficult to enter the lucrative crypto market. Also the pricing for projects will be more realistic. If it will be more difficult to get money from an ICO. Blockchain projects will have to do a real good job to prepare for fresh money to keep the project going. In the old day’s this process of finding fresh money involves investors and VC’s to enter the company.
Another factor that plays a roll are the financial instruments on the market. Those are future contracts. Future contracts have a good and a bad side. Futures can help to stabilize a supply chain. Futures can also be used to manipulate markets. Some people believe that the future market for Bitcoin manipulates the price. And the manipulation is keeping it down.
Exchanges that do not have a license will be asked to comply. Binance, one of the larger exchanges, faces some challenge’s in Japan. Exchanges are important because they are the gateway to the FIAT world.