Well, my 2014 prediction was wrong - blog.gardeviance.org/2013/11/a-spoi… - I expected "through a combination of the great firewall, official UUIDs, sanctions and official exchanges it will become difficult to use bitcoins internally to trade through non official routes" ...
... I was not expecting an outright ban - bbc.co.uk/news/technolog…
There are several ways of thinking about this - enablement for the digital Yuan and/or more concerningly that China took a view that the horror of bitcoin - blog.gardeviance.org/2013/05/the-pu… - was not manageable even with the great firewall, sanctions, official UUIDs etc.
An alternative to this is that the news reporting is wrong and China has extended control / restricted use of bitcoin internally but still enables the use externally (outside of China). Need to go digging.
China continues to make it more difficult to use bitcoins and other forms of unofficial money internally. No surprises but it's the push against mining for external use that seems a bit odd. I would have thought that enabling crypto growth in other nations was in its interest.
So .... " virtual currency exchange, buying and selling virtual currencies, providing information intermediary and pricing services, token issuance financing, virtual currency derivatives transactions" ... yada yada, internal focus is clearly illegal ...
... "provision of services by overseas virtual currency exchanges to Chinese residents" ... is illegal. No major surprises there. But "There are legal risks involved in virtual currency investment" gives wriggle for outbound investment ...
... and I'm not reading about a crackdown on providing mining facilities to those outside of China - pbc.gov.cn/goutongjiaoliu… ... more monitoring, more control, more risk - yes. This seems more nuanced. I'll need to dig further.
X : Why support any other digital currency other than the digital renminbi?
Me : Internally, that would be the right play. But supporting external use (in other nations) of bitcoin would be in their self interest.
Me : Internally, that would be the right play. But supporting external use (in other nations) of bitcoin would be in their self interest.
X : More concerningly?
Me : Oh ... if it was the case that China couldn't manage bitcoin with the tools it has at hand and had to resort to an outright ban then that means there is little chance for any other nation managing it. This is not a good thing.
Me : Oh ... if it was the case that China couldn't manage bitcoin with the tools it has at hand and had to resort to an outright ban then that means there is little chance for any other nation managing it. This is not a good thing.
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