Chomping at the Bitcoin: An Expert’s Take on Bitcoin in China

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 leading the global rise of bitcoin, as its price was growing exponentially. The digital currency hit its all-time high of over $1,230 a few weeks later.
Then, on 5th December, the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) entered the narrativewith a warning for all financial institutions to steer clear of bitcoin, the first of many that effectively ended bitcoin’s chances at becoming part of China’s everyday economy. Bitcoin’s price fell 25% at the news, and the rest is history.
These days, the country is known for having the world’s busiest trading exchangesand ASIC-filled mining mega-farms. As one local investor said: ‘Trust China to turn bitcoin into another manufacturing industry.’
Mixed forecast In the aforementioned bitcoin in China feature, CoinDesk spoke to Zennon Kapron, a Canadian-born financial technology expert and owner of the Shanghai-based consultancy Kapronasia.

This post was published at Coin Desk on September 30, 2014.