This weekly roundup of stories from Mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong makes an attempt to curate the business’s most essential information, together with influential initiatives, adjustments within the regulatory panorama, and enterprise blockchain integrations.
It has now been two months for the reason that crypto crackdown and subsequent enforcement started. Most new tales are actually simply the trickling down of earlier nationwide insurance policies being enforced at a provincial degree. The most recent instance was from the Anhui provincial authorities, because it introduced a set of measures to cut back vitality consumption, with cryptocurrency mining listed among the many culprits. Anhui is a small province east of Shanghai, extra identified for its scenic rural panorama and agriculture than its contributions to the financial improvement of China. It’s possible different provinces, significantly ones that depend on coal for vitality, may have comparable bulletins over the summer time because the central authorities pushes for a carbon-neutral future.
On July 13, Chinese language mining pool big Bit Mining introduced it had raised $50 million for enlargement outdoors of China. The corporate is listed on Nasdaq and operates BTC.com, which is presently a prime 5 pool for Bitcoin, Bitcoin Money, and Litecoin. That is one other signal that Chinese language mining firms aren’t giving up in mild of the restrictions at residence, as an alternative selecting to relocate the information facilities and mining machines overseas.
The disappearing business left a path of spectacular pictures, together with some printed by Monetary media Caixin. One picture that grabbed the eye of social media depicted a lady who gave the impression to be an ethnic minority holding a bundle of mining tools and energy cables like a flower bouquet.
Going for gold?
Former Bitmain CEO Jihan Wu believes that the mining rules will profit the business over the long-term, citing an improved public picture and eradication of unhealthy actors. It’s actually a pleasant thought, however for the time being, China appears extra intent on eliminating all actors, not simply the unhealthy ones.
With the upcoming Winter Olympics in February of 2022 looming, Beijing may have the proper alternative to point out off clear blue skies and clean-energy industries. On prime of that, China can showcase its state-of-the-art central financial institution digital forex, with out the confusion stemming from extra speculative digital property that may seem to have similarities on the floor. These with first hand recollections of the 2008 Summer season Olympics may keep in mind the strict regulation towards know-how and social unrest previous to that landmark occasion.
Lowest volumes in years
The influence is being felt by main exchanges in China. Huobi’s BTC/USDT pair noticed solely 109K BTC transacted up to now week, the bottom weekly quantity courting again to October of 2018. World exchanges have been additionally affected by slumping volumes, however to not the diploma as these predominately Chinese language exchanges. In at the moment’s regulatory local weather, there’s little question that exchanges proactive in decentralizing operations and threat are higher poised to reduce injury from unfavorable insurance policies.
Working collectively for compliance?
On July 13, the Nanjing Public Safety Analysis Institute introduced it was working with OKLink to fight cash laundering. OKLink is a blockchain know-how agency that has ties to OK Group, an organization that used to handle main change OKex. With change management below unimaginable scrutiny in 2021, there isn’t any shock in seeing makes an attempt to placate regulators.
Abandoning ship
On July 15, cryptocurrency media firm Bishijie introduced it was shutting down after violating nationwide legal guidelines towards cryptocurrency. Bishije, which interprets to Coin World, had loved a variety of reputation in 2018, previous to the depths of the final bear market cycle. This current bull cycle by no means noticed it totally recuperate it’s earlier place nevertheless, making this solely a minor loss for the present cryptocurrency house. It stays to be seen whether or not different media platforms based mostly within the mainland can survive this attempting time period.
