How a TikTok Ban Could Influence The Price of Bitcoin and Ethereum

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Last Updated on 6 November 2023 by CryptoTips.eu

The US congress has finally, after fifteen grueling rounds of voting, agreed on a new speaker of the house in Kevin McCarthy, the republican representative from California. However in order to attain this position the Republican leadership has had to make major concessions to the rightwing faction of its own political party.

Those concessions could be very bad news for TikTok, the highly popular social media platform  which is currently the most popular entertainment app among American teens.

Although TikTok banned crypto ads in 2021, the influencers promoting cryptocurrencies are everywhere on the platform. With one billion views per day for the app, that means millions of views for people speaking positively about crypto.

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Algorithm

Tiktok also serves as a way for crypto influencers to introduce Bitcoin, Ethereum and other digital currencies to GenZ. A TikTok ban could stifle the price of crypto or, the algorithm could be used to suppress the price of what is a growing American industry, crypto mining.

The rightwing faction of the Republican party aims to ban TikTok altogether in the US as they claim that Bytedance, the Chinese company that owns Tiktok, reports directly to the Chinese government of Xi Jinping.

If Tiktok’s popularity is left alone it will continue to grow in importance among teens and young adults in the US, allowing the CCP to harvest tons of data, according to Republicans like Marjorie Taylor-Green, Lauren Boebert and Matt Gaetz.

At the same time, conspiracy theories on 4Chan and Reddit claim that US teens are being pushed into acquiring more and more crypto coins via the platform, which has many crypto influencers pushing the purchase of Bitcoin, Ethereum and Dogecoin. If they wanted, politicians in Beijing could thus, according to those same conspiracy theories, cause the price of Bitcoin and Ethereum to fall or rise by changing the promotion algorithm of the platform.

The Merge

As Bitcoin mining becomes an important industry branch in the US, which has taken over many mining companies from China after that country forbade the practice, the simple changing of the TikTok algorithm could in this manner make it difficult for American crypto companies to make a profit.

Furthermore, the switch from Ethereum’s proof of work to proof of stake, also known as the Merge, might be considered a technical marvel. However it also means that the majority of the voting nodes for Ethereum are now all based in one country, namely the US.

As we were reminded this week that a US bank could be ready to implode because of the collapse of crypto platform FTX, it is clear that the power of technology and the interchangeability of different industries like finance, social media and crypto will only grow.

Daniel.Constante / Depositphotos.com

Jeroen Kok

Jeroen is one of the lead copywriters on Cryptotips.eu and discusses all recent events in the crypto market. This includes news updates, but also price analyzes and more. He developed his passion for cryptocurrency during the bull run in 2017. He has learned a lot since then. The combination of cryptocurrency and creative writing is perfect for Jeroen and an excellent way to share his knowledge with a wide audience. Find me on LinkedIn / [email protected]
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