As the markets misbehave and cause heartburn, it is worth remembering that there is an IOTA team participating in a business camp in Tokyo. As the market stands, IOTA (MIOTA) has dropped 17.14% in 24 hours to trade at $1.26 at the moment of writing this. This is not a bad value, but IOTA has seen better days when it was trading at $5.69 around December 19th. $1.26 is a 78% drop in value from the peak value of $5.69. The last time IOTA was trading at $1.26 was around late November of 2017.

The current drop in value can be attributed to a bunch of negative news that has plagued the cryptocurrency markets. All of which has happened in the last 72 hours. There has been an attempted hack on Binance that left the market tail spinning out of control for a bunch of hours and the aftershocks are still being felt in the markets. What happened was that a bunch of hackers took advantage of API tools on the site to access trading and causing a pump of Viacoin (VIA) to levels 152% higher than the market price. It is unfair to blame the entire market dip on Binance for there are two other factors that are contributing to the current levels of panic.

The second reason for the market dip, is the declaration of the SEC that the cryptocurrency exchanges operating in their jurisdictions, need to be registered with the SEC. Such a statement reminds us of the panic caused by the South Korean government when it stated that it would ban cryptocurrency trading only to back down on the claim when it openly admitted it had no existing laws against crypto. According to Brad Garlinghouse, these comments by the SEC mean that exchanges have three options: to de-list all ICO tokens, be forced to register under SEC and be regulated, or close indefinitely in the territories SEC has a reach on.

The third reason why the markets are tanking is the news that a whale has disposed of $400 Million worth of Bitcoin over the past few months. Additional reports claim that he is not done yet and he shall continue to sell off some more.

It is with such dramatic news that fans, HODLers and believers of the IOTA project are looking for major announcements to propel their project to the spotlight and hopefully create a comeback in the value of the coin in the markets.

What many IOTA fans are pointing out, is that IOTA is part of an ongoing Blockchain Business Camp in Tokyo, Japan. The city wants to be the epitome of a smart city through advancement and use of new technologies in all aspects of the city. Therefore, it has invited a bunch of technology based companies for a two month intensive course to help accelerate and mold innovations to improve on the lives of the residents of the city. The business camp is about to complete its 2 months with a final Public event around the 16th of this month, where all attendees will be pitching their solutions to the public.

To add to the anticipation of major news from Tokyo, Dominik Schiener, a co founder of the IOTA project, mentioned in a Bloomberg.com article that IOTA wanted to become global by setting up headquarters in Toronto, Tokyo, Oslo and Taiwan. Could it be that this statement is in anticipation by the IOTA team of a possible permanent presence in Tokyo.

Other notable achievements by IOTA are that the city of Taipei (Taiwan), is testing IOTA technology for the issuing of the city’s identification cards for its citizens in a project dubbed Digital Citizen Card Project. Another notable achievement of the IOTA team is the submission of a proposal to design and implement Sweden’s own national digital currency: The e-Crown.

All this is more or less good news but the Tokyo outcome is the much anticipated Hail Mary Pass that the IOTA project needs to boost the performance of the coin in the crypto-markets and propel the project into the global spotlight.

[Photo credit: investopedia.com]

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