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With the cryptocurrency market already going into a slump, things are not looking good for the investors as the market suffered another crash on 24^th November. All the 20 of the top cryptocurrencies in the market have gone to the red zone, and bitcoin trading has gone below $4000.

The crypto markets have seen a tremendous decline this year with the market going down by 10-15%. The cryptocurrency Stellar (XLM) has faced the brunt of this crash with the currency down over 20%. It is currently being traded at $0.14 at press time. The plunge in the rate of Bitcoin to below $4000 broke the previous threshold of September 2017. On November 24^th, it dropped to as low as $3,585 before settling at $3,800.

The biggest cryptocurrency in the world is down by more than 32% and faced the first massive sell-off this month on 14^th November. Back then, Bitcoin was stably being traded at a value of $6,300 which is higher by 40% than its current price.

A major cryptocurrency- EOS was seen overtaking Bitcoin Cash for a short while going by market capitalization. This made it the fourth largest coin with the third position going to altcoin Ethereum. Bitcoin Cash has been seen suffering some of the biggest losses this year with the currency going down to around 19% on the 24^th. Currently traded at around $165, the currency is down by more than 56% in the last one week.

The total market capitalization of the market came down by $130 billion on 24^th. This is the lowest since September 2017, and at press time, the market cap is somewhere close to $120 billion. The daily trade volumes in the market come close to around $19 billion. The market share of Bitcoin as of today is somewhere around 54.5%.

The state of Ohio is all set to become the first state in the United States to accept cryptocurrency as tax payments. This is as per the reports published in the Wall Street Journal on 25^th November. The initiative for collecting tax in the form of cryptocurrency initially applies only to businesses, with plans to move it to individual taxpayers in the near future.

Starting from this week, all businesses in the state of Ohio will be able to pay their taxes in popular cryptocurrencies. All the payments to the government will be processed by a crypto-transaction platform known as BitPay. BitPay is not just a crypto-wallet but a platform for transferring cryptocurrencies into fiat money.

According to the Wall Street Journal, this crypto-friendly move has been pushed by the State Treasurer, Josh Mandel, who wishes for the state to Ohio to be an example in the national adoption of cryptocurrencies. The current Treasurer is also confident that this forward motion towards cryptocurrency will continue even after the termination of his term in January. Since Mandel is a state-elected official, he and the office is able to take this stride forward without requiring any kind of legislative approval or nod from the Governor. There have been similar bills introduced in several other states proposing collecting taxes in the form of crypto. But the lawmakers in the state have been reluctant to pass them through and enforce the bill.

In most of the states, such bills have either been delayed or brought down due to a lack of approval. For example, in Georgia, in February, a bill was introduced to allow tax payments in crypto which died down with only 25% of votes going for progression. Something similar happened in Arizona in May.

The cryptocurrency market saw a major sell-off season during the last ten days. There is a range of reasons regarding the slump in the market, and this has affected opinions very strongly. Since the value of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have fallen to disastrous levels, there is palpable panic in the market.

According to experts, there are a lot of factors that have gone into this 10-day slump. There are numerous socioeconomic factors that have to be considered while analyzing the negative events- one of the most important ones being the sentiments of the investors regarding the traditional and cryptocurrency markets.

Experts argue that the sentiments of the market were affected by the recent Bitcoin-cash fork which built-up to the hash rate war. This introduced significant uncertainties in the cryptocurrency market. This has resulted in traditional investors pulling their money out of the cryptocurrency market in order to avoid risks and uncertainties. The significant split in Bitcoin Cash occurred on 15^th November which resulted in competing chains known as Bitcoin ABC and Bitcoin SV. This has caused a major reduction in value of BCH as well as all other cryptocurrencies in the market.

The mounting regulatory pressures have also played a significant role in guiding the market sentiments in a difficult direction. The SEC decided to implement levies on the first couple Initial Coin Offerings which, in reality, were securities offerings. Added to this, the investigation into the controversially stable coin known as Tether has misguided market sentiments even further. The global pressures have also been quite high ever since the badly implemented Brexit, and which led to the tightening of policies in banks and declining market liquidity.

These, however, in no way imply that bitcoin is faulty. As the experts call it, this is just a “flash crash.”

The Gibraltar Blockchain Exchange (GBX) has managed to secure a license from the GFSC or the Gibraltar Financial Services Commission. Gibraltar made announcements about its Blockchain exchange platform when the country’s stock exchange established GBX in July this year. The aim of the platform is to “become the world’s first nationally regulated digital asset marketplace and ecosystem.”

GBX began its full operations as of 21^st November when it became the country’s fully licensed provider of the Distributed Ledger Technology and is regulated by Gibraltar Financial Services Commission. This has come as one of the most significant developments in the crypto world. There is a framework of regulations and operations of the GBX known as the Gibraltar Financial Services Regulations 2018 DLT framework. The Gibraltar Stock Exchange has thus become the world’s first blockchain-based stock exchange which conducts regulated blockchain exchange.

Operations of the GBX

As of today, there are six digital assets that are supported by the GBX- Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum Classic, and the country’s own Rock Token (RKT). Apart from this, USD has been added with plans to add more fiat currencies in the future. The GBX is open to the public and saw more than 300 participants in July.

Gibraltar has become world-famous for trying to establish a blockchain economy and safe space for cryptocurrencies. The government and stock exchange are coming together to draft a law that will restrict the initial coin offerings in the British territories. One of the main features of this law is the establishment of authorized sponsors who are going to be responsible for taking care of financial crime rules and maintaining compliance and ethics in all transactions. By March, way ahead of its release, GBX had attracted 200 initial coin offerings.

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