2013-08-22 Bloomberg - Why the Chinese Love Bitcoins

[kiko]

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-22/why-the-chinese-love-bitcoins.html

The Chinese have found a new investment that sidesteps the scrutiny of the country's authorities. And for now, it's paying off big.
Bitcoins, a virtual currency invented in 2009, is attracting investment-hungry Chinese who often struggle to find good assets that generate high returns.

Hat tip: reddit - http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1kvf9t/why_the_chinese_love_bitcoins/

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[aigeezer]

It's fun with a propaganda piece like this to use some other ethnic group or nation-state monolith in the wording and see if it changes the meaning.

For example, the quotation above might become: "The Chinese Americans have found a new investment that sidesteps the scrutiny of the country's authorities. And for now, it's paying off big.
Bitcoins, a virtual currency invented in 2009, is (sic) attracting investment-hungry Chinese Americans who often struggle to find good assets that generate high returns."

Try that kind of switch anywhere in the piece. My favorite is probably "Bitcoin isn't controlled by any government. That's part of why the virtual currency is so popular in China America, a country where the government controls the flow of money overseas and keeps a tight rein on what it views as undesirable behavior at home."

In general, the author's argument is that Chinese adoption of BTC is a response to tight government controls in China. If true, it of course begs the question of why America, with one tenth the population of China has much higher BTC penetration, or as the author puts it "China has surged from seventh place in global Bitcoin collections last year to second, ranking only behind the U.S." No doubt the author would say with a straight face that in one country it is because of tight controls and in the other country it is because of freedom from tight controls.

Whatever the causal relationships are, I doubt that the situation is as simple as this piece claims.

[Carlton Banks]

Whatever the causal relationships are, I doubt that the situation is as simple as this piece claims.

To answer, if you look at Chinese government's behaviour, they're only interested in controlling their country, not anyone elses (cue shouts of "Free Tibet"). And it's also my belief that it's done to stop external players influences hijacking their political process. When it comes to personal freedom, at least you know where you stand in China or Russia. In America, they pretend it's still like the spirit of the Founding Fathers and the Bill of Rights. The Founding Fathers are doing a dance like that possession scene in The Exorcist, however (spinning in mid air, for the those that need it explaining)