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Bitcoin, Ripple and ethereum prices crashed down after the South Korean Government announced it would impose stricter regulation on cryptocurrency trading. But while bitcoin value appears to be slowly recovering from the plunge, the financier warned global Governments will seek to regulate trading to crackdown on criminal activities exploiting criminal activities. Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency not controlled by a single administrator and can be used to buy things worldwide electronically.



South Korea announced plans to “legalise” cryptocurrency trading for registered real-name accounts only in a bid to tackle anonymity in trading. Real names will have to be used starting from January 30. He said: "Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are a way for bad dictators or criminals to bypass sanctions and so from my perspective, and I think from the perspective of politicians around the world, governments are not going to allow that to happen.

GETTY•CNBC Bitcoin price: Bill Browder warned the cryptocurrency will face a "tough" and "devastating" end

They will get to it and it will be extremely tough and devastating and hurt the share price Bill Browder

"They will eventually regulate all cryptocurrencies in the same way you can’t take out more than $10,000 out of the bank without reporting it to the US Government, they’re not going to allow people to take a million worth of bitcoin and move it from Russia to Switzerland. That’s just not going to happen." The Hermitage CEO said regulation will ultimately lead to the "tough" and "devastating" end of bitcoin due to increased amounts of transparency and loss of "libertarian freedom" which currently characterises cryptocurrency trading activities. Libertarian economists rally in favour of the utmost level of economic freedom and autonomy in trade, warning against government power and control over economic matters. Speaking to CNBC, Mr Browder continued: "Eventually it’s going to be regulated and as it gets regulated one of the prime aspects of bitcoin will disappear, which is this libertarian freedom.

"What we’ve seen over the last 10 years is technologies get ahead of regulation. It’s true with Facebook and Twitter with information. "It’s true with bitcoin in terms of money laundering. They will get to it and when they get to it, it will be extremely tough and devastating and hurt the share price." Bitcoin is known to have a massive scaling problem with a huge drag on the time needed to complete a transaction and the cost of fees for doing so. Bitcoin’s popularity has caused demand to skyrocket throughout 2017, pushing other cryptocurrencies like Ripple and ethereum to also reap the benefits of the cryptocurrency craze. According to Coindesk, bitcoin was trading for $11,521.76 at 6.47am GMT on January 25. Ripple's price was recorded at $1.38 at while competitor ethereum traded for $1,095.3 at 6.48am.

Bitcoin's popularity has caused demand to skyrocket throughout 2017, pushing other cryptocurrencies like Ripple and ethereum to also reap the benefits of the cryptocurrency craze. CEO of Vanguard Tim Buckley said his company would “never have a fund on bitcoin". He said: “We love the underlying blockchain technology behind bitcoin, the digital distributor ledger. “Bitcoin itself? You will never see a fund from Vanguard on bitcoin. We tend to stay away from assets that don’t have an underlining economic value." Nobel Memorial Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz warned bitcoin “must” be regulated to stop money laundering.

Cryptocurrency price: A year in charts Mon, March 12, 2018 Compare crypto currencies (Ripple, Bitcoin, Ethereum, LiteCoin) on value, market cap and supply for the past year Play slideshow coindesk.com 1 of 10 LiteCoin is going down with the market dip