China's conflicting policies on cryptocurrencies sparks conspiracy theories to control Bitcoin and other altcoins
Image source: Flickr - woody1778a
It is confusing when reading the news about the Bitcoin's situation in China. On one side of the news, China is confiscating mining computers in the city of Tianjin as reported on CNBC news titled, "Police in Chinese city seize 600 computers used to mine bitcoin" by Chinese News Agency Xinhua.
China was home to the majority of cryptocurrency mining operations before Beijing last year began to discourage it as part of a larger crackdown on bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. It is unclear how much of mining activity has moved offshore or been shut down.
Source: CNBC - Xinhua
The Chinese Government does not tolerate profiteering off its cheap electricity supplies. Instead of revamping its power usage options, they have chosen to take drastic action on Bitcoin miners by seizing their equipment and accusing them of "power theft". Anyway, CNBC conveniently left out the fact that "the electricity meter for the suspected cryptocurrency mining operation had been short-circuited, which was likely an attempt to dodge the electricity bill" - which was reported on Gizmodo - Jennings Brown. So much for accurate news, CNBC.
China's crackdown on mining operations is ongoing and calls for more regulation. ICO bans have been put in place but in today's global financial markets, who is able to fully stop the outflow of money? For example, Chinese investors turn to ICO brokerage agencies via WeChat (China's internal messaging app) to make payments mainly in Ethereum (source: news.bitcoin.com)
Image source: Tech Node - The Top Ten Android App Stores In China 2015
The flip side of a coin
The (Chinese) government wants to improve blockchain technology behind cryptocurrency and may be keen to use digital currency in its monetary policy, Felix Yang, an analyst with the financial advisory firm Kapronasia in Shanghai says.
Source: Forbes - Ralph Jennings
Rather than stopping the inevitable, China wants in on developing blockchain technologies and adopting them into their cryptocurrency network. Like any other technology that has been created outside China, China takes it in a creates its own version of it. Their internal app ecosystem is definitely impressive to look at, considering that Google doesn't exist in China. Due to their tight online censorship, many websites are also banned in China. Maybe @rhyscn can give us an insider view.
Image source: World Bank
China's impact on the rest of the world and us
Nevertheless, this is generally good news for the rest of us. Tapping into China's 11 trillion dollar economy could be the boost cryptocurrencies are looking for right now. If China's version of Bitcoin appears on the exchange, count me in. With https://www.huobi.com/ making waves in the crypto exchange, I'm sure producing their crypto coin is not far behind.
Spellcheck keeps reminding me "chinese" should be in caps and written as "Chinese".