RT – 24 May, 2021 16:10
Bradley Blankenship – is a Prague-based American journalist, columnist and political commentator. He has a syndicated column at CGTN and is a freelance reporter for international news agencies including Xinhua News Agency. Follow him on Twitter @BradBlank_
China’s move to regulate crypto is the only way to avoid an almost inevitable disaster for the environment, investors and the financial market in general if cryptocurrency markets are allowed to remain a digital “Wild West”.
Recently, Chinese regulators released a statement saying that the country would effectively ban any financial institutions and payment companies from doing business related to cryptocurrencies. This ban refers specifically to cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin and not China’s official digital yuan, which is in development right now.
Though many have been critical of the move for interfering in what appears to be a flourishing market, it was justified – and long overdue.
“Recently, cryptocurrency prices have skyrocketed and plummeted, and speculative trading of cryptocurrency has rebounded, seriously infringing on the safety of people’s property and disrupting the normal economic and financial order,” three industry bodies, the National Internet Finance Association of China, the China Banking Association and the Payment and Clearing Association of China, said in a joint statement.
Crypto is a complicated subject since not every cryptocurrency is the same. There are genuine innovations happening in some ecosystems, like Ethereum and other platforms using blockchain technology that introduce, for example, smart contracts and decentralized finance. I personally find these interesting, though in serious need of regulation due to the ‘Wild West’ nature of the market that leaves the door open for scams and financial fraud, something commonly called ‘rug-pulling’ in crypto circles.
In general, however, most mainstream crypto proponents believe that it has some intrinsic value through its actual usage. It’s actually pretty difficult to measure exactly how much people ‘use’ bitcoin since there are scant reports on the subject and perhaps also the semantic hurdle of defining what ‘using’ bitcoin actually is. But if we’re talking about using it in a normal, everyday transaction, it’s clear that this really isn’t happening.
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