In August 2012, a young Chinese entrepreneur posted on the online forum Bitcointalk that he was selling shares in a company that manufactures hardware with chips specifically designed for Bitcoin mining and pays dividends based on its profits. .
Jiang Xinyu, known on forums as Friedcat, was one of the first people in the world to promote such an idea through his company ASICMiner, which uses the acronym for application-specific integrated circuit. Eventually, fraud charges were laid for not receiving payment or equipment, the company went bankrupt, and Jiang disappeared in 2015.
But the idea lived on, and the Bitcoin mining business boomed in China, making Chinese products the “factories of the world.” This is when the idea of Bitcoin started to take hold in China, and thanks to the country's cheap electricity, China became a major producer not only of mining equipment but of Bitcoin itself.
“The idea of decentralized money never really gained traction in China,” said Leonhard Weese, founder of the Hong Kong Bitcoin Association and now head of technical content at Lightning Labs in Vancouver. . “But the idea of decentralized crowdfunding and startups was very attractive in China. Rather than guessing what their future money will look like, Chinese people would rather bet on future startups. I think I've always been interested in that.”
The landscape for cryptocurrencies could not be more different today, as Donald Trump's re-election as US President was confirmed this month. After the November 5th election, the price of Bitcoin skyrocketed to nearly $100,000. Enthusiasm over the future of cryptocurrencies and blockchain in the US has us wondering how China lost what once seemed like a commanding lead, and how it can regain some of that business. Some people embrace it.
The Chinese government has built a strict regulatory regime over the past decade to stamp out Bitcoin trading and mining in the country, saying the digital currency is a threat to the country's financial stability. Trump, on the other hand, ran on a crypto-friendly platform, appealing to both the broader crypto industry and Bitcoin true believers who see the digital asset as the future of money. During the campaign, Trump promised, among other things, to create a “strategic Bitcoin reserve.”