Source: Adobe / romsvetnik
As Bitcoin (BTC) continues its meteoric rise in price, dragging the rest of the market with it, the news has made front pages around the world. Everywhere, except in China, where the price jump has met a wall of stone silence.
A search for “cryptocurrency” on Baidu, the largest search engine in the Middle Kingdom, hardly yields BTC price news from the major media in the country. A similar search on Google in China yields similar results.
What such searches produce, however, is a flurry of news reports of crypto scams, token-hungry dating app-based catfishing programs, police raids, and efforts to combat the “polluting effects” of crypto mining.
The state Chinese business newspaper, the country’s largest financial newspaper, did not mention Bitcoin or crypto on its extensive homepage, while the country’s largest newspaper, the People’s newspaper (also state).
However, the latter reported another setback for Chinese miners: The National Development and Reform Commission (formerly the State Planning Commission) has announced that it will add crypto mining to the list of prohibited industries. While this may sound like a cosmetic change to some observers, given recent crackdowns, it likely means that more serious enforcement action is on the way for those miners who have chosen to stay in mainland China.
The list hasn’t been updated since 2019, and the move would also prevent companies and individuals from “investing” in the crypto mining industry.
A more serious media outage could also come. As previously reported, Beijing has blocked internet access on the mainland not only for crypto-related media but also for price tracking data provider websites like CoinGecko and CoinMarketCap. And the latest, according to Reuters Cyberspace Administration of China The media whitelist has shrunk to 1,358. Perhaps most worrying of all is the omission of Caixin, one of the largest and most widely read financial news in the country.
The regulator also warned that Internet-based news services that republish news “must follow the latest version of the list” and that “distributors who fail to obey the rules face punishment”.
This latter development could further restrict Chinese web users’ access to crypto-related information: Much Chinese bitcoin and crypto messages from smaller media are currently being reprinted on major news sites, but tighter regulation could limit that flow of news.
The Financial Times reported that Chinese crypto enthusiasts are looking to the DeFi industry for access solutions after about 30 large crypto firms – including many mining pools and crypto exchanges – left the country or closed their businesses.
The media company citing data from Chain analysis, written down:
“While recent restrictions are preventing newcomers from entering the crypto markets, experts say some existing cryptocurrency holders are turning to DeFi to keep trading. DeFi protocols do not have the same obligations as the more strictly regulated conventional exchanges. “
Regardless, BTC trading in China, which was once home to some of the busiest exchanges in the world, appears to have taken a massive slump.
Chainalysis data showed that China’s share of global Bitcoin transactions was a whopping 15% in November 2019, but fell to just 5% in June 2021, three months before the most recent raid.
But for those looking for access solutions in China, the story may take an ironic twist. Another Chinese state-run newspaper, China Daily, reported that the country’s cabinet signed a measure that would allow foreign telecom operators to set up joint venture companies to provide VPN services in Beijing.
Although these VPN services are officially only available to “foreign companies” and must be at least 50% owned by Chinese companies, the media office noted the “determination and confidence of the country to open up the telecommunications services sector further”.
At 11:09 UTC, BTC was trading at $ 65,924, increasing 3% in one day and 15% in a week.
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Learn more:
– The US becomes the largest Bitcoin mining hub after China’s miner exodus
– China is ready to go tough with enforcing crypto crackdowns
– Chinese companies are leaving the mainland as Crypto Crackdown Bites
– Regulator is like a “bulldozer”, but Crypto is “resistant to government control”
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