South Korea announces an end to anonymous accounts on domestic cryptocurrency exchanges. The market responds negatively.

You may have awoken today to a lot of red numbers with arrows pointing downwards - not a great way to start your day (unless you're in a buying mood).

South Korea has announced a plan to end anonymous cryptocurrency exchange accounts and a ban on banks issuing new virtual accounts to cryptocurrency exchanges - only accounts with real and matching identities will be permitted.

While this is already the case in other parts of the world, these new KYC rules have put a damper on spending in South Korea. South Korea is traditionally a voracious crypto-investor market, so this will have a cooling effect on the global market for a time. It appears that South Korea is attempting to rein in the highly speculative behaviour of the market.

Decentralized exchanges may make this more difficult to control in the future. For now, most exchanges are performed on centralized exchanges, controlled by a single entity. This is easier to "clamp down" and may, for a time, cause a dip in the markets, similar to the China ban incident during this past September.

Looking back, buying cryptocurrency during the China ban was a savvy move that would have netted a buyer significant gains. Is it time to buy again?

*This is not professional trading advice - just my opinion!

sources:

https://cdn.theculturetrip.com

https://www.coindesk.com