With the help of financial technology, various financial innovations are entering people's lives at an unprecedented speed, making people's financial life easier and simpler. But this "simplicity" is only operational, and the financial essence behind it is never a simple thing.
"Investor education is the cornerstone of financial innovation and development", and many people in the industry have issued such an appeal. September is the month of popularizing financial knowledge in Beijing, and some financial institutions actively carry out related work. In the eyes of the industry, the closer finance is to the people, the more urgent investor education is, which is an important part of protecting investors and maintaining financial stability.
Blind investment, prudence and fraud
ICO (token issuance financing), Bitcoin, P2P (Internet finance peer-to-peer lending platform), whether people understand the essence behind these terms or not, these new things are becoming controversial "innovations" in the financial industry under the tide of Internet finance.
ICO has become a hot word recently. In the eyes of many people, ICO is a kind of financial innovation, which brings a simple and low-cost financing method to people's vision and seems to be the financing method to replace IPO in the future.
However, the relevant departments quickly issued a warning: "ICO-related financial activities have not obtained any permission, including suspected fraud, illegal securities, illegal fund-raising and other acts. Due to the unclear assets of ICO projects, the lack of investors' appropriateness and the serious lack of information disclosure, investment activities are facing greater risks. " Subsequently, ICO was characterized as "unauthorized illegal financing" and was stopped.
But before that, ICO has experienced a round of explosive growth. According to the development of ICO in China in the first half of 20 17, only five ICO projects were launched in China before 20 17. In the first seven and a half months of this year, 60 ICO projects were launched.
"Investment is to see if anyone has taken over. What is ICO? I can't tell." An investor who has participated in ICO investment said this.
After ICO was stopped, Bitcoin was also affected. As the three major trading platforms in China stopped trading a few days ago, many domestic bitcoin investors began to clear their positions.