The Net Neutrality Vote May Block Bitcoin And Cryptocurrency Trading
Channel: Dreamers
Date: 2017-12-14

The United States Federal Communications Commission is expected to vote Thursday to repeal rules designed to protect net neutrality—a decision that could have dire consequences for the booming cryptocurrency market and its underlying technology.
Cryptocurrencies—Bitcoin in particular—have enjoyed skyrocketing prices over the course of the last year and has seen the majority of its rise in value and availability take place under the Obama-era Open Internet Order. With it gone, the currencies may face new scrutiny from internet service providers (ISPs).
Under the Open Internet Order, which was passed by the FCC in 2015, the commission has been given regulatory levers to ensure that ISPs like Comcast, Verizon and AT&T can’t violate the principles of net neutrality. The bright line rules that define net neutrality include no blocking of any legal content, no slowing or throttling internet connection speeds and no paid prioritization that offers preferential service to those who pay for it.
Without those rules in place, ISPs may have the ability to target content or services where they see a significant amount of user activity—and cryptocurrency exchanges have become a hotbed of action as more and more people try to get in on the booming market.
Priyabrata Dash, editor of Crypt Bytes Tech, wrote earlier this year that the biggest threat to cryptocurrency markets is the repeal of net neutrality.
Justin Tabb—the CEO and co-founder of the decentralized, open-sourced internet startup Substratum Network—told International Business Times the repeal of net neutrality protections could complicate all parts of the cryptocurrency ecosystem.
“The elimination of net neutrality protections could pose a threat to Bitcoin miners and traders in the form of throttling or even blocking access to Bitcoin and cryptocurrency sites, including exchanges,” he said.
Tabb noted that how it will all play out is still “strictly hypothetical at this point,” but there is the looming possibility that ISPs will take interest in cryptocurrency and use monopoly-like control in different markets to place their finger on the scale of how the currencies are controlled and operate.
“ISPs could potentially have the power to control access to exchanges, the speed of transactions, and even create and prioritize accessibility to their own cryptocurrencies,” he warned, “which is not such a crazy idea when you think of all the places in this country where a single ISP has a monopoly.”
It would not be out of the realm of possibility for internet service providers to take interest in how digital currency is managed and used. In 2011, Verizon blocked customers on its network from downloading and using Google Wallet, an application that allowed people to wirelessly make payments with their mobile device.
Verizon’s decision to block the app was driven largely by the fact that it had invested in its own version of a mobile payments app. Verizon, alone with AT&T and T-Mobile, launched a wireless payments app called Isis and viewed the high-profile launch of Google’s product as a direct threat to its own service.
While the mobile carrier did eventually decide to reinstate the service and all three of the mobile internet providers later embraced Google Wallet, the incident should serve as a warning for cryptocurrency traders.
Telecoms have already expressed some interest in cryptocurrencies and blockchain, the technology that powers them. A Deloitte survey from late 2016 found that more than one-quarter of telecom executives said they would invest at least $5 million or more in blockchain technology within the calendar year.