Bitcoin Forum

Let's start our reasoning with some backgrounds.

Background 1: Most Chinese government officers, especially high-level ones, have been corrupted. The most common format of corruption is kickbacks.

Background 2: Corrupted officers and corruption-related businessmen hold more than 20% of Chinese wealth, especially currency. If you doubt the proportion, look at china’s Gini coefficient, the figure reached 0.474 in 2012, much more than normal in the world.

Background 3: China now has 100 trillion+ RMB bank saving currency (approx.16 trillion USD), and because of background 2 we mentioned above, 20%+ of them are in the hands of corruption-related officers and businessmen.

Background 4: In China, corruption is illegal. Officers will be seriously punished if caught with clear evidence, and they can even be sentenced to death. And there's always an accusation called "Huge amount of property from unidentified sources", which means that if the officer can't explain how he earned the property in a legal way, then he is defined as corrupted.

Background 5: Chinese central government is firmly fighting against corruption; there are news reports every day of high-level officers being put to prison because of corruption.

From the facts I listed above, I have the following opinions:

Opinion 1: Corruption won't stop or slow down. This is a culture in China which has a history of 2000+ years.

Opinion 2: Officers have always been dying to find a good way to "safely" receive bribes and store their wealth. That's the reason why the price of Chinese antiques and collectibles have been rising sharply in the past decades.

The best example is the stamp of 1980 zodiac monkey. The currency value on the stamp is 8 cents RMB. And the current price of that stamp is around 10K RMB, nearly 100K+ times rise within 30 years. The power behind the rise is the corruption-driven need to store their gray wealth.

http://www.bit-sky.com/images/100663246.jpg

As a “corruption tool”, monkey stamps have the following advantages:

1. Extremely portable. A bag with one million RMB is too showy, but if the money is converted to 100 monkey stamps, they can be put in a small chewing gum box. This is extremely important for bribery.

2.  The authorities can't define its acquiring cost. Because 100 monkey stamps only worth 8 RMB in 1980, and no evidence can show the time of their trading, so inquisitors can't evaluate 100 monkey stamps as "huge property". This will make the corrupted officer free of charge even when he is caught with clear evidence.

But，monkey stamp also has some shortcomings:

1. Fake copies. The stamp is made by printing technology in the 1980s, so making a fake copy is very easy nowadays. And officers are not professional collectors, they can't tell which one is fake.

2. Stamps need to be carefully stored and protected. The stamp is just a piece of paper, if bent, polluted or bitten, its value will be seriously undermined or even disappear. It's also vulnerable to theft.

3.  Not easy to transact for money. The officer himself has to go to a stamp market to change the stamp into money. This is a dangerous action because it will attract attention from anti-corruption bureau.

4.  Difficult to take abroad and transact for money. The Customs of China don’t allow high-value collectibles to go abroad. And few people abroad are willing to buy a Chinese stamp.

Now, Bitcoin has come!

 Opinion 3: Bitcoin is a perfect solution for corrupted officers to store their wealth.

Compared to monkey stamp, Bitcoin not only has all its advantages, but also solved all its shortcomings:

1. Perfectly portable. Bitcoin is a virtual property. It's everywhere, it's pervasive. If the wallet.dat is in a cloud disk, and the holder remembers the password in his brain, he can use his Bitcoin anywhere in the world when connected to the internet.

2. Extremely low starting price. One Bitcoin worthed only 1/1000 USD 4 years ago. Since people don’t know when you get them, all the 12 million Bitcoin can not be defined as "huge property".

3. No fake ones.

4. No storage cost.

5. Can be spent anywhere in the world. Because Bitcoin is money, it doesn’t need to be sold. There're more and more Bitcoin ATMs installed around the world and a huge number of stores have begun to accept bitcoin payment.

6. It's everywhere, no need to be inspected by the Customs.

Opinion 4: Corrupted officers won't speculate in Bitcoin. They will never sell Bitcoin in a formal exchange center (Background 5: all RMB exchange centers require users to register with their real names), and they won't trade in an underground market either, because all these actions will increase the risk of being tracked and caught. They will only spend or sell the Bitcoin when they really need to. Because they are accepting bribes everyday, selling or spending Bitcoin is a rare action for them.

Background 6: CCTV (China Central Television) has clusters of reports about Bitcoin in the past quarter. Because all the officers and bribers are very sensitive to new bribery tools, I'm sure most of them have been aware of the superb advantages of Bitcoin.

Opinion 5: More and more “corruption RMB” will be exchanged to Bitcoin, and these Bitcoin will be frozen.  Let's say 10 trillion RMB will be changed into Bitcoin, this means Bitcoin price will be 10t/21m=500K RMB, or aprox.100K USD, which means 100 times rise. And because of opinion 4 I stated above, the early buyers will buy more Bitcoin with small money, and few of them will sell for profit, this will contribute to another 10 times rise.

From what we have discussed above, we can safely draw the conclusion that Chinese corrupted officers will push Bitcoin price up 1000 times.

see the full version, click here:

http://www.bit-sky.com/index.php/english/370-chinese-corrupted-officers-will-push-bitcoin-price-up-1000-times

For more useful discussions and analysis, click here:

http://www.bit-sky.com/index.php/english

You'll find more than you expect!~

I welcome all your comments and discussions. :)

Monkey stamps; lol, i love it.

Translation:  Bulls have unlimited amounts of fiat ammunition.

edit:  please show a picture of these monkeys!

Corruption is good for Bitcoin.

from the article:

"If the wallet.dat is in a cloud disk, and the holder remembers the password in his brain, he can use his Bitcoin anywhere in the world when connected to the internet."

holder doesn't even need a cloud disk.

There even is a video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFzMMb6lk4g)

after all these years, you still know how to make me smile :)

Bears=Monkeys

corrupted officers will not want to see his bitcoins baught at $1200 and now fell at $500, corruption money does come easily, they risk their life for those money, so no bitcoin!

You're missing the point, of course they use Bitcoins, just like any other mean available to them. The error is the assumption of one particular amount of money being used for one particular purpose. If they were that transparent they'd have a hard time hiding their money.

Or a brain, you could tattoo it as a QR-Code on the bottom of your foot :P

no no, bitcoin is just a bad money laundering method for them, they need stable price to keep their money. for example,

100% corruption money -> 97% A -> 96% B -> 95% C -> 90% corrupted officers hidden account, %10 fee is ok

but with bitcoins, the fee are now %60, so wtf, of cause it's possible that there might be a 150% profit too but that's not why they laundered money for, they want stable value and enjoy the rest of their life in Bahamas after all, not another big gambling risk

In China Bitcoin isn't a currency, it's a commodity (The central bank said so, I've been trolling them zealots with it for quite some time)
If somebody invests in a commodity with their corruption money that's that, it's the same thing with art or these monkey stamps (oh btw  srsly doubt monkey stamps are a trillion dollar market). If somebody wants to pay a bribe in the form of Bitcoins he can do that, of course with the risk of being laughed at.

Why would a zealot care how you label it? I certainly don't.

Bitcoin's properties are it's properties and it can do what it does no matter what you call it.

You aren't the typical Bitcoin zealot. People who are hell bent on attributing Bitcoin to the currency category may even a good description of one. ;D

Fair enough.

The picture is here:
http://www.bit-sky.com/images/100663246.jpg

Not just corrupt Chinese officials
Corrupt folks everywhere

I love philosophical debates.

Besides, those businessmen will directly give the officials Bitcoins(in the form of an USB flash disk maybe ;D) when more people know about it. Offcials don't need to buy Bitcoin themsellves.

The businessmen in China are very much concerned about their way of offering bribes, because if their way of giving bribes is too showy, or not that "approprite", or has the possibility of leaving evidence, most officials will reject, and then the businessmen will lose all the chances.

In China, some Chinese officials are more wealthy than you can imagine. They only accept bribes when they are happy, or when the "gifts" really arouse his interest. How to successfully give bribes has always been a big headache for the businessmen. And Bitcoin is indeed an unparalled tool in this field.

Sounds a bit like criminal risk aversion.

Something tells me that Bitcoin might not be that popular among the corrupt, at least not while it's volatile and involves concepts they likely do not understand:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-02-21/why-drug-lords-and-criminals-are-so-risk-averse.html

For all your discussions, I'd like to say: with more Chinese officials and businessmen know about Bitcoin (that would be very quick with news and reports from CCTV), businessmen will directly give Bitcoin to officials.  Offcials will love it and they wont' sell or spend Bitcoin until they retire.

Good point!

Bitcoin doesn't need them, but they need Bitcoin badly.

Great thread! Thank you for your insights, very much appreciated. Please sir, can we have some more:)

a lot of people have speculated that the chinese government has been stockpiling btc for quite some time, even after they laid down the ban hammer on a major part of the ecosystem...

See more wonderful discussions and analysis, click here:
http://www.bit-sky.com/index.php/english
 :)

If that's ture, I would say Chinese people are lucky to have such a government that's not as stupid as people think.