Photo: G20 Argentina / Flickr

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Despite high-ranking government officials still speak about cryptocurrencies very cautiously, the fact that crypto-summits take place and officials are following crypto-market developments shows the potential for widespread crypto adoption.

At the recent 3rd G20 meeting, senior officials showed cautious optimism about cryptocurrencies: “technological innovations, including those underlying crypto-assets, can deliver significant benefits to the financial system and the broad economy. While crypto-assets at this point do not position a global financial stability risk, we remain vigilant.”

In general, participants of the meeting did not change their opinion on cryptocurrencies in the Communiqué after the last meeting. According to the media reports, some questions were discussed behind the closed doors of the G20. Those topics were not reflected in the official document released after the event.

According to the source who is familiar with the subject of conversations, during the 3rd Meeting of Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors, which was held on July 21–22 in Buenos Aires, Argentina, some very specific topics, such as the rise of the Bitcoin price, the experiment of bankers — IMMO, the digital dollar Tether and fraudulent ICO were discussed privately.

It is not surprising that the center of discussions among the high-ranking financiers was the main cryptocurrency, Bitcoin. Even though participants of the meeting did express interest in Bitcoin as a phenomenon of financial technologies, they did not believe in the further hyperbolic growth of its value. They believe that all sorts of predictions about the future value of Bitcoin are groundless and are only a means to achieve the goals of manipulating the exchange rate. Let us remind that a billionaire Marc Lasry has recently shared his forecast regarding the cost of Bitcoin: speaking on CNBC, the billionaire shared that he expects that the Bitcoin price could reach $40,000 over the next few years.

Discussing the development of crypto-assets in the near future, participants of the meeting also touched upon the topic of reserve cryptocurrencies. Some leading heads of financial ministries are eyeing the development of the IMMO project with a great interest. According to early rumors, it is an experiment of the oldest dynasty of bankers in the field of cryptocurrencies. Until now, it is not known who is behind the creation of this project, but many cryptocurrency experts, including Lon Wong, Tim Draper, Jimmy Song, Simon Cocking and other famous personalities in the cryptocurrency community have already spoken about the mysterious IMMO.

Vitalik Buterin has also commented on the creation of IMMO willingness to compete in the free market:

“If old-money-type high society people want to make their own currencies, go ahead, more power to them; see you in the moderately-free market.”

Buterin believes that governments and large corporations cannot have interests similar to the interests of the average person.

Let us remind you that the first information about the IMMO leaked to public this year in May. A few months later, the media managed to acquire a part of the internal IMMO document, which was used, apparently, for communication with private investors. According to the published document, the IMMO cryptocurrency is based on fundamental values, which are expressed in an equivalent amount of resources located at the IMMO.FOUNDATION.

The participants of the last meeting are not feeling as positive about Tether as they are about Bitcoin. They are worried that the Tether emits digital dollar USDT, which cannot be backed by the real USD. Some of the participants said that Tether should be under the constant supervision of the Central Bank of the United States, as the asset underlying the USDT is the US dollar. It is noteworthy that last month Tether was audited by the law firm Freeh Sporkin & Sullivan LLP. The legitimacy of this audit still remains in question. The participants of the dialogue, however, concluded that the problem of Tether is not significant in the global economy.

According to our source, among other things, the participants of the meeting discussed the necessity to regulate ICO as well as timely prevention of fraudulent schemes. Not so long ago, the consulting company Statis Group conducted a survey, according to which more than 80% of the ICO held in 2017 are fraudulent. In total, the scammers managed to get $1.34 billion. ICO scams are a back to the spotlight in the field of cryptocurrencies, but their market share is extremely small. Thanks to the regulation of the SEC, their market share will decrease over time.

Just like earlier, high-ranking government officials speak about cryptocurrencies with extreme caution. Regulations and legislative framework are still in development, and in the near future significant statements concerning the cryptocurrency market should not be expected from Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors. However the fact that participants of crypto-summits follow crypto-market developments shows that the widespread adoption of digital currencies’ usage is approaching.