Little known article about Zimbabwe ban on crypto exchange relations with banks.
https://themerkle.com/zimbabwe-bans-commercial-banks-from-processing-crypto-transactions/The reason I find this interesting is because Zimbabwe registered some of the highest priced BTC trades last year if I remember correctly.
https://www.newsday.co.zw/2017/12/bitcoin-price-breaches-30-000/Now the reason why it is 30k is because it's low liquidity and there are active P2P sales occurring in Zimbabwe - however, if you look at the dates, that exchange posted grew 3x in about 30 days.
"In terms of volumes, over the 30-day period, Golix reported that 118,6867 bitcoins had been transacted on the exchanges, translating to $3,707,203,995 having been transacted, an improvement from $1 million at the start of last month.
In a 24-hour period, Golix reported that the volumes transacted was 1,7006 in bitcoin for $53,109,738."
This article by Quartz goes on to argue that Golix exchange has low liquidity but is from a month earlier - prior to the big kahoona.
https://qz.com/1130147/bitcoins-price-in-zimbabwe-is-not-actually-13000/Other articles talking about the price disparity (Oct - Dec 2017)
https://www.ccn.com/bitcoin-price-climbs-12400-zimbabwe/https://qz.com/1109470/bitcoin-highest-price-is-in-zimbabwe-due-to-a-forex-shortage/https://www.cnn.com/2017/10/31/africa/zimbabwe-bitcoin-surge/index.htmlWhy is this important?
Personally I believe these price outliers are important for the industry and for growth. When people see the arbitrage opportunity they are willing to take a risk and move money even if it means there is danger of low liquidity.
People lose money - a few gain it, but it's moved into new areas. This ban on banks interacting with exchanges might have positive impacts on BTC price. We also need to bring back the kimchi premium.
EDIT: something else to keep an eye on
https://bitcoinist.com/okex-exchange-ceos-sudden-resignation-prompts-crypto-industry-suspicion/