Bitcoin Daily: Allianz Says Bitcoin Bubble To ‘Burst,’ South Korea Seizes Crypto Exchanges

Bitcoin may be headed for another fall, CoinDesk reported. Charts are suggesting that a sell-off is possible – and the cryptocurrency could fall to lows seen last month. Bitcoin was trading at $8,173.09 as of 7:01 p.m., according to CoinDesk.

And Alphabet’s Google has decided not to run any ads for cryptocurrencies as part of its efforts to clamp down on advertisements that run afoul of its policies, Google said in a post. The company said the new policy, which is slated to kick off in June, will ban ads for things like binary options, cryptocurrencies and related content, and financial spread betting, among other things. The move comes as cryptocurrencies have garnered a lot of attention, even with regular investors.

In trading news, Circle rolled out its Circle Invest platform to most of the U.S. The service currently allows traders to buy and sell bitcoin, bitcoin cash, Ethereum, Ethereum Classic and Litecoin for free, TechCrunch reported. But traders in New York, Minnesota, Hawaii and Wyoming will not be able to use the service: Regulatory issues are preventing it from launching in those four states, at least as of now.

And Allianz Global Investors is not too keen on bitcoin, Bloomberg reported. It’s a bubble that’s about to burst, according to the company. “In our view, its intrinsic value must be zero,” Stefan Hofrichter, the company’s head of global economics and strategy, wrote on the company’s website. “A bitcoin is a claim on nobody – in contrast to, for instance, sovereign bonds, equities or paper money – and it does not generate any income stream.”

In a sign of the times, an Indonesia cryptocurrency exchange may soon count more members than participants in the country’s stock exchange, Bloomberg reported. While the Indonesia Digital Asset Exchange (INDODAX) claims that it will have 1.5 million members by the end of 2018, the Indonesia Stock Exchange counts only 1.18 million registered members.

And, in South Korea, three crypto exchanges have reportedly been seized by the government, Finance Magnates reported. The action comes as the country cracks down on cryptocurrency exchanges, but the seizures were reportedly related to protecting consumers from the unlawful practices of those specific exchanges.