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Don’t be surprised if China follows Russia’s lead in launching its own state-issued cryptocurrency by the end of the year. Don’t be surprised, either, if China’s own investors ignore it in favour of unregulated cryptocurrencies that they will continue to invest in despite China having apparently shut down the entire domestic industry in September.
There is plenty going on in the Digital Currency Research Institute at the People’s Bank of China (PBoC). When China announced a ban on initial coin offerings (a ban spearheaded by the PBoC but actually a joint statement between seven agencies) and then one week later banned the trading of bitcoin and other virtual currencies on all domestic exchanges, it was widely assumed that this was a temporary halt while China nuanced its position on what it is going to do about this unstoppable trend.
