Perception of Bitcoin Changing in China

Perception of Bitcoin Changing in China: Bitkan CEO Shares Insights After 7 Years in Crypto Industry

Since the arrival of bitcoin in 2009, cryptocurrencies have gone from being a distinct segment topic for tech nerds to ubiquitously recognized — if not always understood — staples of recent finance. Bitkan CEO Liu Yang recently took a while bent give news.Bitcoin.com a peek into the Chinese bitcoin community and its changing ideas and perceptions of crypto, throughout Bitkan’s seven years in the business. Though general narratives have changed and evolved, and the recent covid-19 crisis impacted markets, the CEO says that overall China is still bullish on bitcoin.

 Following Bitcoin, Forming Bitkan

An integrated platform for multiple crypto services, Bitkan was launched in March 2013 by former members of China tech giant Huawei‘s R&D department. CEO and co-founder Liu Yang was head of the Huawei Wireless Technology R&D department at the time, leaving to pursue business in crypto when, according to Bitkan, “most people saw Bitcoin as a Ponzi scheme.” “Bitkan started out as a geek product,” the company told news.Bitcoin.com. “The actual time that Bitkan was created was back in December 2012. At that time, most of the major exchanges for bitcoin geek players in China were all from abroad, hence Chinese bitcoin community users need some market alerts tools to facilitate price monitoring.” After launch in 2013, the Bitkan platform grew to be a hub for market data, and an OTC and aggregated trading platform with an active community.

Chinese Community’s Perceptions of Bitcoin Change, OTC Trading Remains Popular

According to CEO Yang, bitcoin was initially some extent of general intrigue for Chinese, but soon “went from being an item of curiosity to becoming deemed a Ponzi scheme by the Chinese community.” From there, the perception evolved. Yang elaborates:

"Towards the end of 2014, everyone began to focus their attention onto blockchain technology. After the ICO wave in 2017, Bitcoin was characterized as a revolutionary digital currency. After the madness at the end of 2017, people have generally heard of Bitcoin. The common man is still rather wary of cryptocurrency while some people regard Bitcoin as the best digital investment product."

When it involves China’s legal restrictions on the crypto industry, and OTC trading within the country, Yang told news.Bitcoin.com there'll always be a requirement .

“I would say that there's always a requirement for OTC trading. Due to restrictive legislation on exchanges, the necessity for OTC will still exist to satisfy investment and trading needs. Thus, after regulations, OTC transactions will inevitably develop more vigorously than before.” Yang makes a small caveat: “However, from the perspective of the entire crypto market, I would say that the number of users are declining as a whole. This is due to regulation and the price of bitcoin.”

Covid-19 Crisis and Ensuing Market Slump

“I think the financial crisis has arrived. In other words, we are already caught in it,” Yang asserts.

"Incidentally, the financial crisis this time is not quite the same as the financial crisis of 2008. This time, as the epidemic situation worsens, many production lines and commerce have stagnated. This may cause a more significant harm to the markets."

Noting government efforts to stem some of the economic carnage, Yang details: “From China’s $7 trillion planned infrastructure spending to U.S. interest rate cuts and the $400 billion plan to boost their economy to protect their businesses, we can see that global governments will likely take steps to save the markets.”

He also notes that some Chinese see the covid-19 crisis and ensuing crypto market plunge demonstrating “a certain degree of correlation between bitcoin and gold” as they need not appeared to follow the S&P stock exchange index in additional recent events.

“We can see that the [crypto] price slump this point happened after the plunge of the U.S. stock market and crude oil,” he elaborates. “Likewise, it has also led to gold to fall as well. This morning (March 19), the S&P 500 circuit breaker occurred for the fourth time this month. However, gold did not fall together with the index and neither has bitcoin.”

Yang views the recent plummet in crypto prices as “a rapid deleveraging process” which will ultimately help crypto. “In the long run, it is conducive to the long-term development of cryptocurrencies. After this plunge, the development of cryptocurrencies will be more healthy and positive.”