With the cryptocurrency market exploding to 60 Billion, a lot of people are taking notice.
In a time of big government and over regulation, regulation is believed to be one of the biggest head winds to the success of cryptocurrencies. Many factors have contributed to the success of crytocurrencies, such as the destabilization of countries fiat currencies, government raids of private bank accounts as in Cyprus, and even criminal activity. I believe the last will be governments war cry to enact new regulations, especially in the way of tax evasion and money laundering crimes.
Even with well meaning regulations, adverse effects may happen. Regulations are usually accompanied by more fees, extra man hours to comply, and a lot of other unforeseen expenses. These can either detour the user basis or even stop a cyrptocurrency from even taking off just do capital requirements. Right now the easiest way to regulate the cyrpto market is the exchanges that it is sold on. The best example that I have seen occurred in February 2017, when China suspended bitcoin withdrawals from 2 of its exchanges. This sent shock waves through the markets, with many of the currencies selling of sharply. There claim was to enhance security measures to fight money laundering
The last thing that I will point out is the data collection that many exchanges are required to do on its users. This really isn't as big of a revelation in this day and age as everything is recorded, and Facebook and Google know all. But it is interesting to know that the MAN is already watching.
