3 reasons why we shouldn’t fret about the China ban on ICOs:

If you are like me and are have been closely monitoring the cryptocurrency world this past month, you would have witnessed the drama created by China as they began a crackdown on ICOs. This news shook the market with many cryptocurrencies taking a dive. Chinese-based cryptos were hit the hardest with NEO losing more than 20% of its value shortly after the news.

The news also triggered a chain of events starting with the postponing of Blockchain Summits in China, followed by major exchanges in China announcing their intention of halting of crypto trading as Crypto players in China bend the knee to Big Brother. These series of events, coupled with the unnerving comments of some big names in the finance industry sent the crypto market into a further tailspin losing about 45% of market value from its recent highs.

Reveal spoiler

At the time of writing my CoinGecko’s Dashboard shows a big fat red. Just when I thought the crypto market cap could push past its previous high of $170B, the domino effect caused by the happenings of late pushed the market in just the opposite direction.

During these turbulent times, I find myself periodically pondering about the future of cryptocurrency with questions that might affect my investment decisions like:

• Is the current price a good entry point or should I wait longer?

• How much lower would crypto get before getting better?

• If there was really a crypto bubble and it bursts, what would the price of Bitcoin be?

• How much savings would I be willing to set aside for crypto?

So far my answers to these questions seem to be based largely on how I feel and my personal wishes for the market. Therefore, in my attempt to be more objective in my ponderings, I have decided to put aside my speculative tendencies to objectively view blockchain and cryptocurrencies.

Here are 3 reasons I believe investors shouldn’t FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt) the turbulence of the crypto market of today.

1. Blockchain is here to stay.

• Blockchain Tech ain’t goin’ anywhere - it is here to stay. In fact, Bitcoin - the first blockchain application has defied all odds to emerge a global winner. From hacking attempts to hard forks, from being a joke to one of the big boys, Bitcoin has been around the block for a while now.

• The regulatory enforcement of late is just but a maturing process for blockchain technology which will eventually grant cryptocurrency a seat alongside mainstream finance. This brings to mind two similar examples which are Airbnb and Uber, two big names of today who were not really on good standing with the authorities during their inception. Uber stepped on the toes of the local taxi industry and faced hefty penalties and crippling threats while Airbnb had to navigate through the thicket of lawsuits and regulatory hurdles. Today, their reputation speaks for itself and the model of sharing-economy has given rise to many companies sharing the same vision. The time for blockchain has come and cryptocurrency will be the future.

2. In the long term, central authorities deal no hurt to decentralisation.

• The ban on ICOs might deal a blow to exchanges and set back months or years of hard work but the ban cannot cripple the fundamentals of blockchain because blockchain is decentralised.

• In fact, this was exactly why decentralisation was created ie. to get around the meddling hands of regulators who seek to serve interests other than the masses.

• Therefore, the crypto community shouldn’t be worried about how regulators would hurt cryptocurrency in the long term. In the long term, blockchain provides a scalable solution to enforce trust in our society. That being said, I believe also that in the long term, decentralisation might have to coexist with centralisation, for example, taxes might be imposed for transactions and purchases made.

3. A lot of cryptos are well backed and a lot of blockchain applications and cryptocurrency have real-world use cases.

• Let me just list out a few blockchain applications and hands up if you own more than 3 of them:

  • Ethereum – Platform for Smart Contracts
  • Augur – Platform for the prediction market
  • Qtum – Building Business applications
  • Omisego – Payment Processor
  • zCash – Allows private transactions
  • Golem Network – Decentralised Supercomputing network
  • Steemit – Social Media Platform (You Are here!)
  • Ripple – Solving global transactions
  • Litecoin – Bitcoin’s younger brother

• These are great companies and platforms that have really strong backing both in the form of cash and human capital. The guys working on these projects are brilliant and hardworking and currently they have only shown to be promising.

What I just wrote was mainly a reminder to myself to:

"Keep calm and hodl"

Especially when the sentiment is poor because blockchain and cryptocurrency is not a speculation, it's an investment.

Have fun investing!