Bitcoin was banned in China today - this followed the previous ban, which was enacted following the ban before that - which came after the first still-active ban.

Yes - the truth is that ridiculous.

To People New To Crypto "China Bans Crypto" Sounds Like An Important Story - But, It Isn't...

Every few months, China bans crypto. They've been doing it for years.

Not only is it a non-story because nothing changes fundamentally, but China has been announcing crypto bans for so long we have historical data to prove that Bitcoin's value passes every price-point they made these announcements at - a predicion we can believe will happen again, as it has been tested and re-tested several times over.

Actually, China does this so often, crypto-twitter waits on standby with memes ready for the occasion.  Let's let them sum up the situation...

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Author: Justin Derbek
New York News Desk

The definition of 'panic' says those feeling it have 'uncontrollable anxiety' often causing 'wildly unthinking behavior' - so when we look at incidents of 'panic selling' it's no surprise that when the panic is over and we look back, it often becomes clear that decisions made weren't made logically.

Selling crypto in response to anything happening in China is one of those illogical decisions. 

The ONLY Way Economic Turbulence In China Effects Crypto is if WE Allow it...

Did people forget China COMPLETELY cut ties with the cryptocurrency market?

China's authoritarian ban on cryptocurrency trading and mining (so, everything) means that news from China triggering crashes in crypto is caused entirely by people outside of China panic selling, and including crypto among the assets they're dumping. 

People based in China may decide to sell off US stocks, but they aren't dumping crypto they don't own.

Until the past year many would rightfully point out 'but many Chinese do own crypto, the government can't actually stop it'. But this isn't like before.

Yes, a couple years ago there was a thriving underground of Chinese crypto traders ignoring government warnings.  Today it's not worth the risk - people have been arrested, and financial service companies face harsh penalties for serving anyone suspected of profiting from crypto.

In other words, with both law enforcement and the banking industry in China actively enforcing the ban, successful trading would be followed by the nearly impossible task of getting those profits into the country. 

Profits made legitimately would need to go through a money laundering process - this is the point 99.9% of people call it quits. 

"China’s government is doing everything they can to ensure that bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies disappear from the Chinese financial systems and economy" said Fred Thiel, a member of the Bitcoin Mining Council.

The Final Nail in Coffin of Crypto in China was the Launch of their Own Digital Currency...

With the launch of their own digital currency, the digital Yuen, they see crypto as a competitor to their own digital coin. In a country where getting rid of competition is as easy as outlawing the competitor, the competition was over before it started. 

China May Have Wanted Bitcoin DEAD, Everywhere...

It's also worth noting that many suspect the move to ban crypto mining actually had much larger goals - to destroy bitcoin completely.

It's a bit disturbing to think about, but the idea of pulling half of all miners offline sounds like a good way bring chaos to the crypto market - and that's exactly what China did. 

Thankfully, the chaos never came. 

Instead of crashing, Bitcoin proved it's resiliency. Miners around the world were quick to pick up the slack, and there's rumors of Chinese miners fleeing the country with their equipment but preferring to keep their destination unknown for now. 

In Closing...

My point is simple - China made their stance clear, their economy is to have no ties to cryptocurrency, period. Currently, when Chinese investors sell assets in a panic sell-off, it won't include crypto. 

On weeks like this our disconnect from China is an advantage - so let's take advantage of it.  Crypto could be a 'safe haven from Chinese market volatility' because on a technical level that's true - investors just need to treat it that way.

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Author: Ross Davis 
E-Mail: Ross@GlobalCryptoPress.com Twitter:@RossFM
San Francisco Newsroom / Breaking Crypto News

 
100,000 inhabitants of the city of Shenzhen, in China, received 200 digital yuan (e-CNY) each, which is about $30 US, and will be able to spend them in more than 3,000 retail stores, among which are large international chains such as Walmart.

Citizens had to apply online to win a raffle style contest to receive the digital funds - now they must spend it between February 1 and 9, 2021. After February 9, the Government takes back anything that was not spent.

Currently some options are unavailable, for example users will not be able to make transfers between each other, a feature that will be allowed when the coin is officially launched.

The Chinese government's plan is for the digital currency to be fully operational for use during the next  Olympics, which will take place in Beijing in 2022.

An official digital currency also brings a with it a new level of surveillance powers by the government over it's citizens - this is one of many recent steps towards expanded control.  

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Author: Adam Lee
Asia News Desk 

The process of understanding digital currencies began in China all the way back in 2014, when the Chinese Central Bank conducted basic, preliminary 'studies' - just so they would know what they were dealing with.

But lately, China has made it clear they're done learning.  The student may soon become the teacher.  That is, China is on a path to lead the world as the first country with true digital national currency.

While Venesuala's Petro is technically issued by the government, that nation's political issues stopped the Petro from being a functional  currency used in the global market. Because the nations rejecting it would still be rejecting it whether it was a cryptocurrency or not, so we can't consider the Petro an example of how a national cryptocurrency would function.

One of my sources, an analyst within a well known firm in the blockchain space has had the Chinese government as a client for awhile now, but only lately have they stepped things up, he explained: "Actions accelerated last October when they wanted to know every possible outcome of replacing the renminbi with a cryptocurrency.  Their goal being to reduce the costs inherent to issuance of paper money." 

He continued, touching on their general sentiment currently "They seem convinced of the advantages of crypto, and still debating potential disadvantages.  We're one of a few outlets providing a neutral 3rd party opinion.' 

Looking in to what was happening publicly around this time in October, we saw the approval of a new law for the use of cryptography, and President Xi Jinping offered statements in favor of considering some blockchains central technologies for "important and innovative advances".

Why the sudden acceleration? China's Fear Of Facebook.

Everyone I spoke to that I consider an expert on China said the same thing - they looked at Facebook's plans for Libra, and went into panic mode. 

Facebook and China have consistently clashed - they're very aware that Facebook is outside of their sphere of control.

"To them, the plans for Libra could have been presented by a US Government official and it would have been received the same - that's how they view Facebook. An American company, that tried to bring their platform to China but still wanted to follow US rules - not conform to China's" a contact who works inside a Hong Kong based crypto exchange told me.

There's a disaster coming if things don't change...

While Libra may have lit the fire that put China into overdrive, Facebook's fire here has been snuffed out by the US Government.

I'm no fan of Facebook, but I also never viewed Libra as a threat to other cryptocurrencies, if anything, it would serve as an easy first step into the cryptocurrency world, where people could get their feet wet.  Libra users would soon wander deeper into the waters, having gotten over the initial fear of using cypto for the first time.

American politicians actions against Libra may end with a global coin that isn't bound to USD, but the Yuen instead.

The clips I've seen of elderly US politicians who clearly lack any basic knowledge of how cryptocurrencies work, grandstanding and flexing their authority to Zuckerberg on TV seem dead set on hauling Libra.

Meaning China could end up first to market with a big global cryptocurreny, while the US is at a complete stand-still.

Like it or not, the combination of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, and the ability to aggressively push the users of these apps to try Libra, is a shortcut to 'mass adoption' no one else can mimic.

I get not liking Facebook, but I don't get stopping them just to allow China to do it instead.

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Author: Adam Lee 
Asia News Desk