Summary:

• Google is going to ban all ads promoting cryptocurrencies and initial coin offerings (ICOs)
• A joint stance of the European Central Bank and Bank for International Settlements says “Bitcoin is not the answer to the cashless economy”
• Japan is expected to call for stricter rules for cryptocurrencies at the G20 summit as soon as next week

All traders and pundits were taken off-guard when Google announced it was going to ban all ads regarding cryptocurrencies as well as so-called initial coin offerings or ICOs beginning in June as a part of a wider crackdown on high-risk financial products. Let us remind that Facebook and Twitter undertook the same steps over the course of the past weeks, however, this time a response to the Google’s announcement was really benign and there was just a brief move to the downside seen across major digital currencies. Apart from cryptocurrencies Google is going to target binary options, risky derivatives with an all-or-nothing pay-off. Let’s also underline that thus far Google queries for terms such as “binary options” and “buy Bitcoin” have produced ads at the top of the results. The newly announced decision came with the release of the company’s annual “bad ads” report. Google informed that it got rid of $3.2 billion advertisements from the web in the past year, that’s was an increase from $1.7 billion seen in 2016. 

All major virtual currencies took a hit but the sell-off impressed only when we take a look at a lower time frame. From a daily interval nothing has changed which could be a bit cryptic given importance of Google in promoting digital assets. Source: xStation5

Executives from the European Central Bank (ECB) as well as the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) released a joint statement yesterday suggesting that Bitcoin “is not the answer to the cashless economy”. Remarks from Benoit Coeure and Jacqueline Loh pointed that while banks ought to improve their remittance options they should not necessarily resort to digital currencies. As you can see there is no a common stance with regard to the degree in which cryptocurrencies should be adopted by banks and regulated by appropriate authorities. On the one side watchdogs and central banks in many countries do not seem to be fond of virtual currencies, on the other one they do not want to put too strict regulations into effect which could harm the development of banking.

Litecoin is uninterruptedly hovering around its important support at $165 coinciding with a 23.6% retracement of the entire decline begun in December last year. Until the price stays above this line, bulls could still count on a bounce even toward $235. Source: xStation5

The next G20 summit will take place as soon as next week (19-20 March) in Argentina and an issue concerning digital currencies is likely to be discussed there. There are some reports that Japan representatives will push for the adoption of global rules on digital currencies. Let us recall that Japanese authorities were among the first to adopt a regulatory framework with mechanism to oversee trading on registered cryptocurrency exchanges. The prime goal is to prevent the use of cryptocurrencies for illicit activities such as money laundering.