Antoine Marsan and Bastien Francœur, the two individuals who launched the MRS token. The collapse of the price of this cryptocurrency is the subject of two investigations.
It seems that young people under the age of 20 had to be robbed by the clever creators of a Quebec cryptocurrency to realize how much anyone in the world can create their own " bitcoin ”in order to pass money on the backs of neophyte speculators.
My colleague, Julien McEvoy, reported on Wednesday that around fifteen investors aged 16 to 20 had notably lost large sums of money after having bet from $ 1,000 to $ 50,000 on the MRS (Marsan Exchange Token) that 'had recently set in motion the Antoine Marsan and Bastien Francœur, while encouraging it through influencers on the Snapchat network.
Launched on March 1 at 6 cents, the MRS token reached $ 5.22 on April 18 during the session. Then came the collapse following the massive sale of the Quebec token by a mysterious investor. On April 20, the MRS hit a low of 7 cents. Yesterday noon: 16 cents.
The AMF and the Laval police are currently investigating the nebulous crash of the equally nebulous Quebec cryptocurrency MRS.
FREE CREATION
Like all the organizations responsible for overseeing the world of securities and other financial products around the world, the Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF), says its CEO, Me Louis Morisset, cannot prevent in Quebec the creation of any local cryptocurrency.
According to the big boss of the AMF, it is moreover as easy to create a local cryptocurrency token in his own name as to open, he says, a web page.
Thus, everywhere in the world, there is zero control over the creation of new cryptocurrencies. Come what may, since no central bank (such as the US Federal Reserve, the Bank of Canada, the European Central Bank, etc.) has any hold over cryptocurrencies.
That explains why cryptocurrencies have grown like crazy. There are currently around 9,400 different cryptocurrencies circulating in the wonderful virtual world. And this, after having seen at least 1,640 of them vanished from the circulation in recent years.
In the cryptocurrency Wild West , Bitcoin dominates the market, with a capitalization of US $ 932 billion. Price of his token, yesterday at noon: US $ 49,818. In second place is Ethereum, with a capitalization of US $ 269 billion, at a unit price of US $ 2335. Then follows the Binance Coin at US $ 505 each, for a capitalization of US $ 78 billion.
CRAZY SPECULATION
You just have to follow the evolution of the king of cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, to see how it has been the subject of incredible speculation. And the investors who acquired it, say in November 2015, when Bitcoin was selling for US $ 327, made a fortune ... if they kept it.
At the current price of $ 49,818, they've increased their beginning investment 152 times. This phenomenal rise of Bitcoin has obviously not been linear. It was carried out with spectacular increases and masterful collapses.
Many investors have made their fortune with Bitcoin. But I'd be interested to see the number of beginner speculators who literally lost their money when Bitcoin took a plunge in recent years. You had to have nerves of steel not to panic!
Creation of Bitcoin in 2009 has today become “the” benchmark for cryptocurrency in the globe. Coronavirus pandemic in the last 12 months have been very profitable for him. The price of Bitcoin blew up from US $ 7,543 (April 24, 2020) to a high of $ 63,588 on April 13. Yesterday, it was back below the $ 50,000 mark, down 20%.
Behind the strong appreciation in the price of Bitcoin over the past year, there is the new interest of some large investors and financial institutions for certain cryptocurrencies. I am thinking, among others, of PayPal, JP Morgan, Facebook, Blackrock, Bain Capital, Stanley Drukenmiller, Paul Tudor Jones, Bill Miller, Eric Peters, Alan Howard, the famous Elon Musk of Tesla.
The formation of cryptocurrency trading sites, such as "Coinbase" and "Gemini", has aided to make cryptocurrency transactions more attainable.
The same goes for the creation of an array of derivatives (including exchange-traded funds, closed-end funds, etc.) linked to cryptocurrency assets.
CAUTION
According to the AMF, Bitcoin, Ethereum, ERC20 tokens, etc. are not securities, but “commodity-type crypto-assets”. They were not created, she says, to raise capital, but rather akin to commodities (like oil, gold, or tomatoes).
Hence: “A crypto-asset platform that allows its user to acquire a 'commodity' type token and (compulsorily) take belongings of it instantly is not subject to the ·Securities Act . "
But, adds the AMF, when a platform allows its clients to buy cryptoassets and leave them in an account (or wallet ) on the platform, then there, bingo, the Canadian Securities Administrators claim that it y creation of an investment contract (a transferable security) or a derivative instrument between the platform and its client.
The platform hence becomes subject to the enrollment and / or market responsibilities of securities legislation.
But it is not because such a cryptocurrency trading platform falls under the supervision of the securities "police" that the level of risk will drop in this type of highly volatile investments.