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China orders Bitcoin exchanges in capital city to close

bbc.co.uk

101–110 of 233 posts

Re: China orders Bitcoin exchanges in capital city to close

#101
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many of us analysts who are deep in the game recognize that China is simply shutting them all down to start its own cryptocurrency that (probably) has ID/government name linked to it.

Cite this please.

https://www.neowin.net/news/china-experimenting-with-its-own...

Re: China orders Bitcoin exchanges in capital city to close

#102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Deflationary does not imply an ever-increasing value. At some point, deflationary commodities will be so rare as to be useless. Lack of supply leads to a lack of velocity, which leads to a lack of liquidity. Once that happens, people will move to a competing product. Imagine if soy beans gradually went extinct. In the short-term, the prices would spike as companies reliant on soy beans compete for the shrinking suppl…

> Lack of supply leads to a lack of velocity, which leads to a lack of liquidity How does one define supply with a divisible unit like bitcoin? Arguably, supply does not diminish, rather people use smaller units of bitcoins.

Technically supply does diminish. People like to calculate the market cap of Bitcoin based on the theoretical amount of them in existence however people lose their wallet.dat files all the time which contains the password allowing someone to send those bitcoins elsewhere. This causes deflation to occur on top of the regular limit on the amount of bitcoins.

Tldr; Bitcoin is deflationary because math.

Re: China orders Bitcoin exchanges in capital city to close

#103
post #43
post #15

As soon as I read this, two words came to mind: Capital flight. A growing number of Chinese nationals has been using Bitcoin to siphon money out of China over the past several years.[1][2] Not surprisingly, the Chinese government is cracking down on this innovative form of capital flight. [1] http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/1891021-how-chinese-use-bitc... [2] http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/markets/chinese-i…

> The saver can then exchange bitcoin for dollars at any of the global bitcoin exchanges without anyone ever knowing his identity. This is where the "Chinese people use Bitcoin to exfil capital" story falls apart. It's near impossible to open a foreign bank account and pass KYC from within China as a Chinese citizen. You have to travel to Macau or Hong Kong - and if you're doing that you may as well use the cheaper a…

[deleted]

Re: China orders Bitcoin exchanges in capital city to close

#104
post #87

China will nationalize the domestic miners and treat Bitcoin as a commodity asset that the state controls. I believe this will immediately cause a constriction in supply as those coins will not be sold at least initially on the open market. Look for this messaging to coincide with the pronouncements around the new five-year plan(FYP)[1]. As the first major section of the 13th FYP, innovation is emphasized as a corner…

Interesting theory but how can China control Bitcoin if there's nothing stopping people in other countries from mining it?

China will nationalize the domestic creation of Bitcoin. This is their sphere of influence. Thus they will control the domestic production of bitcoins. This nationalization will kick off the next leg up of the exponential growth for bitcoin. Just as the US Marshals auctioning off the Silk Road coins established legality in the American market. China will want to control capital flight and will use bitcoin as the release valve for their outrageously overhigh investment in US Treasuries.

Re: China orders Bitcoin exchanges in capital city to close

#105
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US takes active efforts to prevent USD being used in illegal activities. That's not to say that it isn't, but there are legal red flags if you try to haul a big pile of bills through customs. Cryptocurrency's entire use case so far has focused around illegal activity. Whether said activity is immoral is up for debate (you can certainly deem breaking the laws of some countries to be moral), but illegal? Absolutely…

If you want to know why people associate bitcoin with crime, look no further than the people celebrating that it will be easier to commit tax fraud now in this very thread. That kind of petty criminality and fraud seems to run through the heart of the bitcoin community, and is part of why I think people are reasonable to associate it with questionable activity -- that's what it's advocated as supporting even here on…

Come on though, it's not that unreasonable to point it out, and it doesn't mean anyone who points it out is a menace to society like you seem to imply.

It's not that different than when people (used to) talk about not paying sales tax on online purchases, but hopefully you wouldn't conclude that "petty criminality and fraud seems to run through the heart of ecommerce."

Re: China orders Bitcoin exchanges in capital city to close

#106
post #25
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used it to transfer money between countries with an exchange rate better than any other available. Surely this is not illegal?

It is in China now. Russia too IIRC. Probably several other countries that impose capital controls. In the west this is legal, but the bank may still ask you where the money came from under their enforcement of laws like knowing your customer and money laundering controls. Tax agencies may also get involved if there is automatic reporting.

How is it illegal in Russia?

Re: China orders Bitcoin exchanges in capital city to close

#107

China will nationalize the domestic miners and treat Bitcoin as a commodity asset that the state controls. I believe this will immediately cause a constriction in supply as those coins will not be sold at least initially on the open market. Look for this messaging to coincide with the pronouncements around the new five-year plan(FYP)[1]. As the first major section of the 13th FYP, innovation is emphasized as a corner…

If China is able to do it, wouldn't Bitcoin lose all its value ?

Re: China orders Bitcoin exchanges in capital city to close

#108
post #62
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The bullshit artists that already 'invested' in this scheme will now tell you that China did not matter and the people under them will parrot it. If you're so sure that it's bullshit you're free to put your money where your mouth is and short it.

1) Shorting into a bubble is usually a terrible idea. 2) The only realistic way to short BTC is to do so via a very small list of exchanges. Even if you trust them (which, given the history of cryptocurrency exchanges is hardly a given) the borrow cost is huge: there's no way you could reasonably make this kind of macro BTC bet. The combination of these two realities makes the "If you don't believe the price, you oug…

Then at the bare minimum make some falsifiable prediction, like "a bitcoin will be worth less than 1,000 USD 24 months from today." If someone insists that shorting is infeasible, and refuses to make a clear prediction, then their claim is unfalsifiable and thus fairly meaningless.

Re: China orders Bitcoin exchanges in capital city to close

#109
post #98
post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting theory but how can China control Bitcoin if there's nothing stopping people in other countries from mining it?

Nothing "stopping" it, except the tens (hundreds?) of millions of dollars worth of hardware investment it would take before your new hashrate becomes at all competitive. It's a bit like saying there's nothing stopping you from launching your own soft drink and beating out Coca Cola (you could try, but you probably won't win). China has a huge and possibly insurmountable lead in not just existing built hardware, but a…

Miners have very little power over Bitcoin as a whole. They are constrained both by Bitcoin's rules and economics. If they mine invalid blocks or optimize for something other than fees, the operation will turn unprofitable. If they just stop mining, the mining difficulty will adjust and suddenly ASICs will not be needed to turn a profit. There is a delicate balance in Bitcoin, currently tipped slightly in their favor, that they probably don't want to disrupt.

Re: China orders Bitcoin exchanges in capital city to close

#110
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The sustainable business case is permissionless nature of Bitcoin. Everything else comes down to it. This talk of blockchain technology being somewhat of a new wonderful invention that's supposed to magically make companies more profitable...? Not so. The reason why Bitcoin exists is because governments want control over money. Bitcoin gives people freedom. Period. Everything else is noise.

> governments want control over money Of course. And for a good reason. People utter this line as if governments wanting control over money was somehow bad . Money, within all human societies that exist or existed, is pretty much synonymous with power. It is the tool that allows an individual to incent, compel and coordinate other people to do what said individual wants. With $1 you can make someone cook you a hot do…

>State by its design is supposed to have monopoly on ultimate power. Since money is synonymous with power, the state needs to control money in order to fulfill its function (and to secure its ability to fulfill that function).

Good. It is about time citizens controlled the gov't.

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