Does China Control Bitcoin?

[Ranly123]

Here's an interesting article citing some recent research which claims that the majority of mining power is in China, and those miners may have some perks that others outside the country do not have.

Here's the article.
https://thenextweb.com/hardfork/2018/10/08/china-means-intent-destroy-bitcoin/

It talks about whether China could destroy Bitcoin, or perhaps use it in some other way.

What do you think? Does China control Bitcoin? If so, is it the government or no? Are these Chinese Bitcoin mining farms working together? What might China do with Bitcoin (government or no) in the future? AKA, attempt to destroy Bitcoin (would they be successful, do you think), use it to bring more wealth into the country or personal pockets, use it to attack other nations, etc?

Looking forward to your thoughts,
The Cyberius team. 

I don't think China holds and control the flow of Bitcoin. Yes China has a vast user of cryptocurrency compared to other countries but it does not mean they control something like bitcoin though.

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[davis196]

Today is 2019,not 2016 or 2017.This topic is old.China doesn't control bitcoin,because crypto trading is banned,according to the Chinese laws.If China really had any control over bitcoin,do you think that they will ban all crypto trading on their territory.Bitcoin was causing big problems to the Chinese goverments and the PBOC due to the massive capital export outside China.

[maydna]

Here's an interesting article citing some recent research which claims that the majority of mining power is in China, and those miners may have some perks that others outside the country do not have.

Here's the article.
https://thenextweb.com/hardfork/2018/10/08/china-means-intent-destroy-bitcoin/

It talks about whether China could destroy Bitcoin, or perhaps use it in some other way.

What do you think? Does China control Bitcoin? If so, is it the government or no? Are these Chinese Bitcoin mining farms working together? What might China do with Bitcoin (government or no) in the future? AKA, attempt to destroy Bitcoin (would they be successful, do you think), use it to bring more wealth into the country or personal pockets, use it to attack other nations, etc?

Looking forward to your thoughts,
The Cyberius team. 

I don't think China holds and control the flow of Bitcoin. Yes China has a vast user of cryptocurrency compared to other countries but it does not mean they control something like bitcoin though.

I think the same thing as you. It is hard for China to control bitcoin because it will need big money to have bitcoin or to buy bitcoin. Although they have a big mining company in the world, they still cannot control bitcoin. They are trying to regulate bitcoin and want to buy as much bitcoin, or they want to mine bitcoin by their hardware. That will happen too with the US, which wants to regulate bitcoin. Bitcoin is free for all people, and no government can control bitcoin, I guess so they could only ban bitcoin from the people used.

[jostorres]

I think as a nation and as a government are two totally different things. If people think of Chinese government when they think about "china controlling bitcoin" than there is really no way because government bans these crypto movements all together and they really do not want bitcoin or any other coin to get too big in order to keep their power and not give up their power to bitcoin. They even banned miners and ICO funding all together, like it is punishable if you invest into those things and you would have to pay a lot of money in penalties.

However, if you mean "china" as in the people of that country than there is still a lot of power reside there, not only in Chinese people in china but Chinese people all around the world as well, they are really working to become number one or maybe even already are.

[fullhdpixel]

The deal is that china has a lot of bitcoin in its nation, we don't know how they can move it outside the country but the miners, the traders, the ICO participants and everyone else in that nation wants to cash out their crypto currencies and sell it to each other, they earn it from other nations and people from all around the world but then exchange it between themselves.

So, if China was smart even a bit they would have collected the crypto profits in crypto taxes in form of crypto to build a new vault for themselves and in case a country wants to apply an embargo or a trade war like USA wanted to they could just simply sell all their crypto they collected via taxes and could get dollars for it instead of yuan and then sell those dollars to drop the value of it as well. Its smart, its cunning and it would make a nation super strong in economy against others.

I don’t understand man, how can they build vault for what is not physical, cryptocurrency is digital and they don’t need to build vault to have it saved or have difficulty in moving it outside the country no matter how large the amount is, I think they have been doing this easily which china itself has not been able to successfully control its technology as a result of its anonymous nature.

I believe that this is the reason why they thought of bringing the attack from the angle of miners, since they know that majority of the miners of bitcoin and other cryptocurrency are from china, so if they can limit their mining power, then they can limit the supply of cryptocurrency flowing round which will make it difficult for people to acquire crypto and them becomes difficult for them to move money out of china.

[o48o]

I don't understand these "strong ideological motives". Why would anyone pay to try to "destroy" bitcoin when they might as well make more money while mining.
Few double spends doesn't destroy bitcoin and they would cost a fortune. I mean why would people support their chain after that? This is just fud. Or the publication has a weak understanding on how the bitcoin works.

[suzanne5223]

Large volume holders of bitcoin has got the ability to manipulate the market to some extent, it doesn't mean those are controlling the market. China has got a large userbase of cryptocurrency users as well contributes big to the mining power. This is the reason for people having such a opinion over China. These days users were found all over the world and the every country has a fintech city. Mining of bitcoin too found around, during the early days of bitcoin China supported much.

I think it is the US that has the maximum number of people involved in Bitcoin and other crypto and the maximum of Bitcoin are owned by people in the US. In other words, the US could be able to influence Bitcoin only with an aggregate action. China put a kind of ban over ICOs in the country thereby limiting the amount of crypto startups in the country. So it is up to a great extent under the influence of the US right now.

I supported what you said base on the research I did which shows the US and Canada as the top countries which had the highest number of people involved in bitcoin while China has the biggest mining power due to electricity rate but that might change if Korea takes a bold huge step into the crypto mining.
Even US or Canada don't have the power to control bitcoin

[hulla]

I don't understand these "strong ideological motives". Why would anyone pay to try to "destroy" bitcoin when they might as well make more money while mining.
Few double spends doesn't destroy bitcoin and they would cost a fortune. I mean why would people support their chain after that? This is just fud. Or the publication has a weak understanding on how the bitcoin works.

Firstly the question about if China control bitcoin is a long time question which have been asked when the Chinese government havent place some restriction on crypto currencies and the answer is no organization, governments or group control bitcoin except the crypto communities.

Secondly, the ideological reason behind the destruction of an asset is done by group, companies or organization which sees bitcoin as an obstacle to their own investment or business and these are also the reason why 51% attack happened to some crypto currency..

[o48o]

I don't understand these "strong ideological motives". Why would anyone pay to try to "destroy" bitcoin when they might as well make more money while mining.
Few double spends doesn't destroy bitcoin and they would cost a fortune. I mean why would people support their chain after that? This is just fud. Or the publication has a weak understanding on how the bitcoin works.

Firstly the question about if China control bitcoin is a long time question which have been asked when the Chinese government havent place some restriction on crypto currencies and the answer is no organization, governments or group control bitcoin except the crypto communities.

Secondly, the ideological reason behind the destruction of an asset is done by group, companies or organization which sees bitcoin as an obstacle to their own investment or business and these are also the reason why 51% attack happened to some crypto currency..

Yeah but we were not talking about 51% on some other cryptocurrencies. Andreas Antonopoulos explains this better then i could in this short video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncPyMUfNyVM

[bryant.coleman]

A lot is being discussed about the 51% attack, but it is easier said than done. As per the latest stats, the Chinese mining pools contribute 74% of the hashpower. But not all of this 74% comes from mega mining farms. A significant part comes from the medium-level miners, who operate under the radar. And in case the Chinese government intends to go ahead with the 51% attack, do you really think that the Bitcoin users will just sit back and watch? They will immediately implement hard forks which would nullify any such attack.

In short, China is unlikely to attack Bitcoin. These are the reasons:

1. It is against international law
2. Low probability of success
3. It will ruin the reputation of the country
4. It will move crypto-related businesses out of China
5. The expenses will be significant.

[FIFA worldcup]

Here's an interesting article citing some recent research which claims that the majority of mining power is in China, and those miners may have some perks that others outside the country do not have.

We cant really deny into this fact but doesnt mean that they do have the control over the network they might ave big impact but not totally coming

to a point that it would be monopolized considering that China isnt the only place that do mine. No one control bitcoin and if someone does then its value wont really be the same on what we are seeing now.

This.

Still is good that everybody is aware that the miningpools are not descentralized at all, most of them are control by the same entities and it could be a problem in the long run.

Frankly speaking there's no problem that can be seen from what you think because miningpool can't be decentralized and even at that can't be use as an attack against Bitcoin, in as much the coons is decentralized, little will the minner have a control if there will even be.  Even at that there are many others that mine the said Bitcoin and not China only.

So you mean to say that miners control the bitcoins, then this is also not true either. If china has the biggest mining farms then it does not mean that china will be controlling the bitcoins. The advantage of decentralized currency is that it cannot be controlled.

[Arkham Knight]

No, they don't but it's more likely that they have more than half of the current supply of bitcoin right now. The last update that I have read from their latest analysis on btc is very positive which makes me think on what I said is really true. They can't control bitcoin but it is very clear that they can control btc price to makes cash from dumping and pumping.

[brotherwood12]

hard to belive this after on 2017 china goverment was banning crypto mining on china . also if we put the bitcoin after it was mined it was owned more than 1 people or 1 group so its hard to make them have one vision to control it

[SirLancelot]

I think it is the US that has the maximum number of people involved in Bitcoin and other crypto and the maximum of Bitcoin are owned by people in the US. In other words, the US could be able to influence Bitcoin only with an aggregate action. China put a kind of ban over ICOs in the country thereby limiting the amount of crypto startups in the country. So it is up to a great extent under the influence of the US right now.

I  doubt if it is United states, the fact that many people use the USD to trade as pairs for BTC does not mean that they are all from United State, I trade with USD and I am never from there so as many people that you see in this forum too. If the numbers of traders or investors from united states was that much, why would Binance pick up that courage to kick them out? I even learnt that the percentage of US citizens in biance exchange is just 14% .

Therefore,   I don’t think it is United states that controls crypto market neither. We could even say that it is china, because that is where 70%  of the miners are from, and what is crypto without the miners, so these is where we may say the control comes from majorly, even though they don’t have much influence in the market.

[suzanne5223]

I don't think so for me china is the world largest crypto mining in the world because of the population

A country having the world largest mining factory does mean the country can control Bitcoin and if you're saying this cause you think Bitcoin price will be badly affected if the Chinese shutdown their mining factory, you wrong and alot of experienced crypto price predictors confirmed that the price of bitcoin will even surge more than before.

a huge crypto community depsite of banning cryptocurrency and when it comes to controlling to bitcoin it is possible but maybe not because bitcoin is a united cryptocurrency that different country own to it.

Bitcoin was banned in some part of India and people from there still invest in it despite the jail and punishment sentence that's the influential power of Bitcoin itself.

[barbara44]

I supported what you said base on the research I did which shows the US and Canada as the top countries which had the highest number of people involved in bitcoin while China has the biggest mining power due to electricity rate but that might change if Korea takes a bold huge step into the crypto mining.
Even US or Canada don't have the power to control bitcoin

Korea is gradually becoming cryptocurrency friendly too and it is only a little matter of time, before Korea takes over from china in term of mining, which is why I was never bothered when everyone was thinking china banning miners in china would affect bitcoin, what china does not understand is that in this life, there is no one that is irreplaceable, and this applies to country and government too.

If china pushes too hard to go against miners in their country, those miners will simply not mind migrating to Korea, because it is something that pays them more than the petty work they do in china from the sales of those low quality products that they ship worldwide, so they think because they control the large amount of products going to the world, they can control bitcoin too, it is absolute lie.

[hulla]

I think it is the US that has the maximum number of people involved in Bitcoin and other crypto and the maximum of Bitcoin are owned by people in the US. In other words, the US could be able to influence Bitcoin only with an aggregate action. China put a kind of ban over ICOs in the country thereby limiting the amount of crypto startups in the country. So it is up to a great extent under the influence of the US right now.

I  doubt if it is United states, the fact that many people use the USD to trade as pairs for BTC does not mean that they are all from United State, I trade with USD and I am never from there so as many people that you see in this forum too. If the numbers of traders or investors from united states was that much, why would Binance pick up that courage to kick them out? I even learnt that the percentage of US citizens in biance exchange is just 14% .

Therefore,   I don’t think it is United states that controls crypto market neither. We could even say that it is china, because that is where 70%  of the miners are from, and what is crypto without the miners, so these is where we may say the control comes from majorly, even though they don’t have much influence in the market.

Do some diligent research about the information to clear your doubt because the US are picked not because of the USD trading pair and Binance is not the only available crypto exchange site. However,  Binance was founded in the year 2017 and you expect all crypto traders which have been trading since 2015 to leave their trusted exchange and use Binance cause most of the US base crypto traders trust much in coinbase .
Go through their ID verification and you'll see how awesome the exchange is.

[TheUltraElite]

Therefore,   I don’t think it is United states that controls crypto market neither. We could even say that it is china, because that is where 70%  of the miners are from, and what is crypto without the miners, so these is where we may say the control comes from majorly, even though they don’t have much influence in the market.

Miners do not control the network. That is the first thing what people are mistakenly writing here. What miners do is confirm transactions but they cannot take control of the network just because their mining power helps secure the network. If a group of miners like the Chinese decide to go rogue then other miners can take the upper hand are remain sound in securing the network making the former attack useless.

So that said, we can assume that nobody has the power or the ability to control the blockchain. Where this topic comes from is this misconception that some people have.

[Menawi12]

Chinese people are holding a lot of Bitcoin but I think they will not cooperate to manipulate the market. because in many other countries there are many people who hold lots of Bitcoin and they are completely anonymous.
Besides, the Chinese government is quite strict with Bitcoin entrepreneurs and they always have to work in silence.
Therefore, they will not be able to destroy Bitcoin.

Although many bitcoin investors from China and Bitcoin Miners are dominated by China, I think China cannot control the price of Bitcoin. Every exchanger sometimes has a different price even though the difference is small but this indicates that bitcoin transactions are global and cannot be dominated by certain countries

[Broly46]

With over 51% of mining capacity, I think even Satoshi can be helpless with all that processing power, but luckily not all the 51% mining power come from the one person in China, it came from a few big mining farms, we can’t rule out they may work together for some profit as benefit, but I don’t think they will take the risk to change anything for now. And the best part is no other country can produce more processing power than the manufacturing power house, I don’t think anyone can challenge China in mining for a very long time.