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Prices of major cryptocurrencies saw a sharp downward slide Thursday, amid closer regulatory scrutiny on the space and after Google announced plans to ban advertising related to the sector. The market capitalization or value of all the world's digital coins stood at $310.4 billion early on Thursday morning, down from $372.9 billion a day before, according to Coinmarketcap.com, which tracks prices based on different exchanges. Bitcoin, the world's largest cryptocurrency by market cap, traded as low as $7,676.52 on Thursday, the lowest since February 8, according to CoinDesk data. However, by 4.00 a.m ET the price had recovered to $8,219.77,...

When a cryptocurrency start-up that promised to revolutionize the fruit and vegetable industry shut down last month, it left behind one word on its website: penis. When a virtual currency company called DateCoin recently tried to entice investors for its initial coin offering, it posted a Facebook ad that featured a reclining woman in a swimsuit with text over her body that read, “Touch my I.C.O.” And after the North American Bitcoin Conference in January, which highlighted 84 male speakers and three women, the official conference party was held at a Miami strip club. Virtual currencies and blockchain, the digital...

By Jon Danielsson, Director of the ESRC funded Systemic Risk Centre, London School of Economics. Originally published at VoxEUCryptocurrencies are supposedly a new and superior form of money and investments – the way of the future. The author of this column, however, does not see the point of cryptocurrencies, finding them no better than existing fiat money or good investments.I have been trying to understand what the point of cryptocurrencies is, without success. They may not be an immediate financial stability concern (den Haan et al. 2017), but I just don’t get them.As far as I can tell, they...

Bitcoin, along with many other cryptocurrencies, has recently taken the world by storm. Bitcoin’s devoted investors believe that the blockchain technology behind the currency will usher in an era where currencies are free from government manipulation. However, large governments of the past and present have not taken kindly to competitors of any sort. A competitor to the government’s greatest mechanism of power (currency issuance) is a threat the government will not ignore. There are numerous examples of the US government going to great lengths to make sure the US dollar is the most used currency in the world. If the...

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