Why China is Leading the Global Rise of Bitcoin
The bitcoin story in China sounds like a mini-metaphor for the Chinese economy itself: while the rest of the world was looking elsewhere, its citizens worked to acquire vast amounts of new wealth before bursting into the headlines only recently as a superpower. As of this November, China is home to the world's largest-volume bitcoin exchange (BTC China), some of the largest mining operations, and could well be leading the global rise of bitcoin. It was in May that China surpassed all other countries with 84,000 bitcoin wallet downloads, a world record few noticed. Then came a half hour....
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Earlier this year, Prime Minister David Cameron expressed his desire to make UK the world leader in the fintech sector by 2020. Chancellor George Osborne has also said that he wishes to makeUK the global fintech capital. However, as the year comes to a close, their plans are being dented by the Bitcoin hotbed that is China, which has surprisingly bagged 7 spots in the top 50 fintech companies list published by Fintech Innovators. Two of these companies, ZhongAn (#1) and Qufenqi (#4), feature in the top 5. ZhongAn is an online insurance company which has the backing of Jack Ma, the founder....
Latest data shows the leading global Bitcoin hashrate now resides in the US as a result of China’s crackdowns on mining. US Leads In Bitcoin Hashrate, Kazakhstan And Russia Follow After As per a report from the University of Cambridge, the US is now leading the global BTC hashrate, with Kazakhstan and Russia following soon […]
Around mid to late 2013, the bitcoin world started waking up to an interesting realization: bitcoin growth wasn't being driven by the typical finance and tech centers of New York, London or Silicon Valley. In fact, China was playing the more significant role. At that time, exchange BTC China had already posted the record-high bitcoin price of $308 (CNY equivalent) in April 2013 and was surpassing Mt Gox in trade volumes. Chinese factories were cranking out mining machines and the country's residents were downloading more bitcoin wallets than anyone else in the world. In November, China was....
Bitcoin Priced in USD on Mt. Gox. Above is Gox price as of ~9:30 PM (GMT+2). Still above the previous low, but dipping below the 38.2% retracement level. Note the low volume. What's leading us down? I suspect the trading fees implemented on BTC China, as documented elsewhere on this site. 0.3% fees are still cut-rate by Western standards, but the Chinese may have taken it as a negative sign. I believe that free services are common to China's highly competitive, winner-take-all economy. Bitcoin Priced in CNY on BTC China. And here's Bitcoin price in China; note that volume remains high and....
Over the weekend, The Economist offered its takeon Bitcoin’s (and other altcoins’) China problem. It argues that regulation has driven people in China out of that market in droves over the last four months or so, which isn’t a shock to anyone. “Most investors have left the market,” BTC China’s Bobby Lee told the magazine. In late November, Bitcoin’s value against the dollar broke well clear of the $1,000 mark. On some exchanges, it peaked above $1,300. More than 100,000 Bitcoins were traded daily on the BTC China exchange, and we were all excited about China leading the way. Today,....