It is illegal to spend bitcoins in China

[CIYAM]

 Credit card purchases cheap yes, but how ubiquitous is acceptance of plastic.  

When it comes to "bricks and mortar" shops maybe not that huge but on Taobao (the Chinese eBay) it is *huge* (we are talking millions of tx's per day).

[Come-from-Beyond]

http://www.informationweek.com/internet/ebusiness/china-limits-use-of-virtual-currency/218101859

"The virtual currency, which is converted into real money at a certain exchange rate, will only be allowed to trade in virtual goods and services provided by its issuer, not real goods and services," the Ministries said.

I wonder why they failed to mention that in the documentary.

What issuer? Who issues bitcoins?

That law had to do with Q coins. Since there is no issuer of bitcoins, it does not apply to bitcoins.

I know a lot of entities who issued bitcoins - Deepbit, Slush, 50BTC...

[CIYAM]

I know a lot of entities who issued bitcoins - Deepbit, Slush, 50BTC...

I think that is a bit of a *reach* (the Chinese government is not stupid).

[Come-from-Beyond]

I know a lot of entities who issued bitcoins - Deepbit, Slush, 50BTC...

I think that is a bit of a *reach* (the Chinese government is not stupid).

The state ALWAYS reads laws a way that is profitable for the state.

[CIYAM]

The state ALWAYS reads laws a way that is profitable for the state.

No argument with that - I think that the state (PRC) will of course only allow what it thinks is going to be beneficial to itself (but even that is a complicated thing).

[mhps]

The CCTV piece was mostly neutral on bitcoin as it REPORTED a phenomena that most people never heard of. It's a stretch to say CCTV supports bitcoin. 

[Abdussamad]

Did anyone bother to check the date of that article? Its positively ancient in Internet terms. This is a non-story.

[General_Hughes]

Looks like this is just a way to get more dollars/euros etc. As processing power to mine will be produced more cheaply in China as are many goods it becomes a profitable export industry like semiconductors or any other real product produced in China. This is a net gain for them. This isn't much different than the trade of any other goods. The China government policy is to extract resources through a favorable balance of trade. We will likely have a stagnation in the BTC price as production shifts to China with an associated lowering of cost without a proportional increase in demand.

[kokojie]

The CCTV piece was mostly neutral on bitcoin as it REPORTED a phenomena that most people never heard of. It's a stretch to say CCTV supports bitcoin.  

The CCTV also spoke favorably about Fa Lun Gong (FLG is a religious group), a year before the government started to crack down hard on it. At the peak FLG had nearly 100M members, nowadays FLG hardly even exists in China.

Also, remember the Chinese government is not a tightly united group, there are tons of different interest group and leftist/rightist organizations battling for power and controll, within the umbrella of Chinese Communist Party. Sometimes the Chinese government will seem to be favorable to something, and then over night, another group takes over power within the party, and start cracking down on it.

[atomium]

i keep hearing that bitcoin is booming in china but then i hear all of these regulations happening over there, what is the real story?

[ktttn]

Are IRL chisese merchants not yet accepting btc?

[CIYAM]

Are IRL chisese merchants not yet accepting btc?

Apart from a couple of the "meetups" I am not aware of any Chinese merchants accepting BTC (apart from Avalon who are actually a US registered company).