Showing posts with label china cryptocurrency. Show all posts
Showing posts with label china cryptocurrency. Show all posts

How Bitcoin Mines Were Airlifted From China to the US Following China's Ban On Crypto...

The Chinese government has been attempting to eradicate cryptocurrencies in the country for quite some time, with varied degrees of success.

In 2021, restrictions on mining eventually drove firms out of the country, relocating to nations such as Kazakhstan, who have more favorable policies toward cryptocurrency mining. A number of towns around the United States have welcomed them, with both support and condemnation coming from residents 

Video Courtesy of Motherboard / Cryptoland 

WHY Does Chinese Economic Issues Effect The Crypto Market? Well... It's OUR FAULT...

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

If The US Doesn't Take The Lead On Crypto, China Will...

us and china cryptocurrency policy
Even casual viewers of cable news are familiar with commercials featuring actor William Devane – usually golfing or horseback riding – exhorting them to invest in precious metals. Lately, Devane has been joined in this pursuit by financial educator Robert Kiyosaki, creator of the “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” series. The prevalence of these ads should not be surprising. In these volatile times, the Trump administration has spent big and printed money. (The United States is not alone in borrowing and printing its way out of this pandemic.) There is no reason to expect different behavior under Joe Biden.

It’s no wonder that alternative stores of value are flourishing. Days ago, the cryptocurrency Bitcoin reached yet another all-time high, just as it became clear that a Biden-Harris administration was a fait accompli. But while Bitcoin is the best-known digital currency, it is only a small part of a technological shift that could satisfy our demand for safer, cheaper, and faster ways of doing business in times of crisis and disruption. Bitcoin’s underlying technology, blockchain – a sort of shared, secure ledger of transactions between networked computers – has applications ranging from supply-chain management to securing international payments. It could be “a game changer for the global economy,” according to JPMorgan Chase. In fact, the investment giant started using its own JPM Coin in October to move investor money across its global financial platforms. Consulting firm Gartner forecasts that the business value-add from blockchain will blow past $3 trillion by the end of this new decade.

The industry powering all this change, however, is finding it harder to stay in the United States due to Washington’s dysfunction. Silicon Valley start-ups are investing billions in research and development, but there is still no clear set of rules to help them bring products to market. Congress has punted on writing a regulatory framework, and the country’s oversight agencies are – as usual – fighting over turf. Experts say that this “regulatory chaos” is suppressing American innovation while other market centers like Britain and Singapore have quickly updated their rules to lure American blockchain developers away, while Beijing scrambles to establish tech dominance.

Roslyn Layton of the American Enterprise Institute sent the Senate a blunt message this month: regulators, lacking guidance, are killing innovation. China could soon overtake us, she warned, unless the Senate holds Biden to his promises of “technocratic competence” and firm economic competition with China.

At least eight regulatory agencies are fighting over who gets to play U.S. crypto cop. Without any direction, regulators “copy-paste their bureaucracy on anything that moves,” Layton observed. The Securities and Exchange Commission is applying archaic 1930s rules that “never imagined blockchain solutions,” comparing all digital assets to securities no matter how they are designed or used.

Critics like Layton point to China’s new “digital yuan” – the country’s sole legal cryptocurrency – as a disturbing signal that the Chinese are gaining on us. The People’s Bank of China formally issued it in October and has enticed 2 million Chinese to bid on U.S. $10 million worth of the official token, says Wayne Brough of the Innovation Defense Foundation. Big American companies including Starbucks, McDonald’s, and Subway have embraced China’s new currency. France, Sweden, Switzerland, and Japan are developing central bank digital currencies of their own. Brough frets that through inaction, the U.S. will “blunder our way out of winning a race that we were born to win.” 

George Nethercutt, former Republican congressman from Washington State, warned in The Hill that Washington’s neglect could create “a needless trainwreck.” China and Singapore are paving the way for their own blockchain industries, he wrote, “while the U.S. is struggling with a coin shortage, stimulus check complications, and an obvious dearth of understanding on Capitol Hill about what a cryptocurrency even is.” This is “embarrassing” for the most technologically developed country in the world, he lamented.

Layton and Nethercutt point the finger at outgoing SEC Chairman Jay Clayton, who, Layton said, made “a deliberate lack of regulatory clarity” the “cornerstone of his crypto policy approach.” Clayton demonstrated “no understanding for the need for a regulatory framework” with his “notoriously guarded approach” to blockchain solutions, Nethercutt added, “significantly constraining American innovators.”

Clayton empowered the SEC by treating any digital asset as a “security,” justifying enforcement actions with a 1946 Supreme Court ruling. Clayton’s SEC lowered the boom on “utility tokens” – a core feature of business software using blockchain – according to Layton, even if they “had no resemblance to investment contracts.” This treatment extended to utility token XRP, the third-highest-valued cryptocurrency in the world, used by American developers like Ripple and R3 to power the kind of payment systems that JPMorgan has already rolled out. Just by putting this token under “a bewilderingly persistent enforcement threat,” the SEC hurt every developer on the XRP ledger. Clayton preserved his own agency’s power “but steadily eroded U.S. leadership as the best place to do business.”

It remains to be seen what Biden thinks of Clayton’s view of unlimited power over digital assets, or whether Biden’s promise of bipartisan cooperation will extend to ending the regulatory chaos.  Republicans have spent the last four years slashing regulations and reining in the administrative state and should understand that China can’t be allowed to win the crypto race. Senate Democrats on the Banking Committee like Elizabeth Warren and Sherrod Brown should remember that a president of their party, Bill Clinton, enacted the regulatory framework for e-commerce in 1997. It created millions of American businesses, reaching tens of millions of customers, and spawned a long list of occupations that had never existed before.

Coming together to vet Biden’s SEC pick on crypto policy and move the country closer to a clear set of rules would be a win-win for both parties and for the U.S. economy. Our competitors abroad can never beat us on innovation – unless we continue to shoot ourselves in the foot.

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Guest Contributor: Bill Zeiser