{"id":14249,"date":"2021-09-24T17:17:20","date_gmt":"2021-09-24T17:17:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ci028e0c1230002755"},"modified":"2021-09-24T17:17:20","modified_gmt":"2021-09-24T17:17:20","slug":"china-ban-bitcoin-is-a-good-thing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/markets\/china-ban-bitcoin-is-a-good-thing","title":{"rendered":"The \u201cChina Ban\u201d Is Good For Bitcoin"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"bsf_rt_marker\"><\/div><p>Today, news surfaced that China had issued a <a href=\"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/culture\/the-peoples-central-bank-of-china-bans-bitcoin-again\">final and complete ban<\/a> on Bitcoin. Harsh, it seems, right? Headlines of the likes of \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/articles\/china-declares-bitcoin-and-other-cryptocurrency-transactions-illegal-11632479288\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">China declares cryptocurrency transactions illegal; Bitcoin price falls<\/a>\u201d invoke a sense that not only this is big news but also that Bitcoin suffers from it. Well, despite a couple of daily red candles, both are wrong.<\/p>\n<p>China has been trying to ban Bitcoin for years. The first time the Chinese government sought to prohibit the usage of bitcoin in the country took place in 2013, only a few years after Bitcoin was born. Since then, the BTC price in U.S. dollars has catapulted.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/Bitcoin?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#Bitcoin<\/a> is up over $40,000 since the first &quot;China ban.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>Zoom out. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/GLODqOKetL\">pic.twitter.com\/GLODqOKetL<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/BitcoinMagazine\/status\/1441365274746314752?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">September 24, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) hasn\u2019t understood it yet, but <a href=\"https:\/\/unchained.com\/blog\/bitcoin-cannot-be-banned\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Bitcoin cannot be banned<\/a>. It is a fool\u2019s errand, not only because Bitcoin is a peer-to-peer, distributed network instead of a centralized, easy-to-be-controlled one, but also because of the game-theoretic aspect of adoption. If one country bans Bitcoin but another welcomes it, capital and people will flock to where they\u2019re treated best. The economic incentives are aligned for a country to accept Bitcoin rather than ban it.<\/p>\n<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/screen-shot-2021-09-24-at-130324.png\" title=\"\"><\/figure>\n<p>So why did China take the other route? At the core of the answer is what is perhaps Bitcoin\u2019s main value proposition: individual empowerment in the form of freedom and sovereignty. Unsurprisingly, two qualities that a communist regime despises. Naturally, China\u2019s policies strictly reflect the communist regime\u2019s ability to stay in power and exert overarching influence and control over its people. Anything and everything that threatens these abilities have been and will be suppressed.<\/p>\n<p>The country\u2019s \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/major-us-tech-companies-blocked-from-operating-in-china-2019-5?op=1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Great Firewall<\/a>\u201d has been preventing Chinese people from accessing a wide range of Western websites and platforms for years, including Facebook, Google, and other major tech companies. The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/china-great-firewall-censorship-under-xi-jinping-2018-3\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">strict censorship<\/a> imposed by communist-ruled China on its people has but one mandate&nbsp;<em>\u2014<\/em>&nbsp;restrict their access to information and enforce obedience.<\/p>\n<p>Bitcoin is a tool that <a href=\"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/guides\/what-makes-bitcoin-valuable\">empowers people<\/a>. The peer-to-peer network treats everyone equally, regardless of money, power, status, race, religion, or culture. It provides all those who use it with the same sound, censorship-resistant, permissionless monetary system. Bitcoin allows people to store and transact sound money with anyone, anywhere, at any time. Ultimately, Bitcoin enables individual freedom&nbsp;<em>\u2014<\/em>&nbsp;something communism is far from being fond of.<\/p>\n<p>The news that China has banned Bitcoin shouldn\u2019t&nbsp;<em>\u2014<\/em>&nbsp;and won\u2019t&nbsp;<em>\u2014<\/em>&nbsp;hurt the currency, the same way that similar bans to Facebook or Google didn\u2019t hurt them. If anything, it strengthens it. If Bitcoin weren\u2019t suitable to be used as a currency, either as a store of value or a medium of exchange, no government would be going through the trouble to ban it. The fact that China has been taking such severe measures to try and stop Bitcoin and bitcoin mining showcases how powerful this technology is and <a href=\"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/culture\/op-ed-in-china-its-blockchain-and-tyranny-vs-bitcoin-and-freedom\">how scared the CCP is<\/a> of its potential.<\/p>\n<p>Bitcoin is a tool to fight oppression, and in being so, represents a threat to all governments that seek a high level of control over their citizens. The open-source technology has the potential to dismantle <a href=\"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/culture\/bitcoin-a-currency-of-decolonization\">monetary colonialism<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/culture\/check-your-financial-privilege\">unfair policies<\/a> and restore world peace. By empowering people to <a href=\"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/culture\/bitcoin-freedom-institutional-plan-world\">reclaim their rights and freedom<\/a>, Bitcoin is the <a href=\"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/culture\/bitcoin-is-a-trojan-horse-for-freedom\">worst nightmare<\/a> of all totalitarian governments. It\u2019s no surprise that China has been trying to ban it for so long. But too bad for them; it won\u2019t be this time that they will succeed, <a href=\"https:\/\/markets.businessinsider.com\/news\/currencies\/bitcoin-price-recovery-kenny-south-park-dennis-lynch-morgan-stanley-2021-9\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Bitcoin will live on<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Chinese ban of Bitcoin shows that the currency is delivering on its promises to enable freedom, something communism doesn\u2019t appreciate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2572,"featured_media":1793,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[347],"class_list":{"0":"post-14249","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-markets","8":"tag-china"},"author_data":{"id":2572,"name":"Namcios","nicename":"namcios","avatar_url":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/pfp-96x96.png"},"featured_image_url":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/img_5987.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2572"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14249"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14249\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}