The Chinese
central bank has issued a warning about bitcoins. According to the
Chinese authorities, the bitcoin has no real meaning and no legal
protection.
This is a
news that come at the moment when bitcoins seem to be successful:
for example, a restaurant in Beijing is accepting bitcoins as a way
to payb the bill. This is possible, the Chinese central bank has not
banned bitcoins, it said that people can use them as long as they are
aware of the risk they take.
Avoid money
laundering and any other illegal use. What is illegal remains
illegal, this is not great news...
Still,
there is a lot of bitcoins flowing into China
the last few months, this is the reason why the central bank has made
this warning.
In the
meantime, China Telecom made an offer where users can buy phones
using bitcoins while Baidu make it possible to buy its firewal
In
China, there are some specific risks, people escape financial
controls when they move money overseas. But bitcoins are not
regulated: people buy bitcoins with RMB, and then they buy US
dollars. It is a way to avoid the rules about currencies in China;
The
warning has had effects: since it occured, the value of the bitcoin
fell 25% within 2 days. This shows how it is related to China.
The Chinese
central bank is not alone. The Netherlands
central bank saif that the bitcoin trend even worse than the
tulip bubble that occured in Holland three centuries ago, because at
the end people at least had a tulip when with bitcoins they will have
nothing.
There is no
bitcoin central
bank, nobody is held liable. Is it a bubble ?
12
millions of bitcoins are available, what is their value. The thing is
that the bicoins issuing algorithm is rather cautious, new bitcoins
are rare. Bitcoins can be the future of money, or they can be
nothing. What is money ? Can you buy an apartment
in China with bitcoins ? So far, it is impossible, so maybe
bitcoins have no value at all...
