Bitcoin Daily: China Plans Crypto Crackdown, Mail Chimp Blocks Crypto And ICO Marketing

Bitcoin fell below $7,000 on Thursday (March 29) – and analysts expect sales of bitcoin and other cryptos to increase as the April U.S. tax deadline approaches, CNBC reported. The price of bitcoin was $6,826.68 as of 11:13 p.m., according to CoinDesk.

And, in China, the country’s central bank is planning on cracking down on cryptocurrencies this year, Reuters reported. In addition, the bank plans to research and develop its own cryptocurrency.

In other news, Ripple’s XRP coin fell to its lowest point since December, Business Insider reported. Even so, Ripple has hired some big names in recent months and has been attracting new customers for its cross-border payment-related products. The price of Ripple was at about $0.4971 as of 11:15 p.m., according to CoinDesk.

And a new cryptocurrency called Chia has raised more than $3 million – without an initial coin offering (ICO), NewsBTC reported. The funding will be used for developing the startup’s coin and blockchain. And the person behind the startup? Bram Cohen, who invented BitTorrent.

In cybersecurity news, that supposed tech support rep from the cryptocurrency exchange may, in fact, be a scammer, CoinDesk reported. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) said that it had received nearly 11,000 complaints on tech support scams. Customers, in all, said they lost more than $11 million in 2017 due to tech support fraud.

And, in South Korea, an insurance company will reportedly not pay a cryptocurrency exchange’s claim for losses it sustained in a December cyberattack, The Wall Street Journal reported. Youbit’s operating company, Yapian Corp., had filed the claim with DB Insurance Co. Its policy, which covered nearly $3 million for a yearly premium of $244,400, had only become effective weeks before.

In other news, MailChimp is cracking down on some crypto ads, such as those for initial coin offerings (ICOs), CoinDesk reported. But the company said in a tweet that not all information related to cryptocurrencies is banned: “It can be sent as long as the sender isn’t involved in the production, sale, exchange, storage or marketing of cryptocurrencies.”