Despite the Chinese government’s efforts to convince its citizens that Bitcoin (BTC) would lose its value, their predictions have proven to be significantly inaccurate thus far. Contrary to their claims, the flagship cryptocurrency has experienced a notable spike of approximately 36% since Chinese authorities predicted BTC’s worthlessness last year.
A Failed Prediction
At the peak of the market downturn, China sought to take advantage of a significant decline in the value of digital assets by cautioning crypto investors that Bitcoin’s prices were inevitably “plunging towards zero.” Moreover, a June 2022 publication of the country’s national news agency, Economic Daily, warned citizens about Bitcoin, emphasizing that the asset held no value beyond being a mere sequence of digital codes.
The article further stated that if an investor’s confidence crumbles or sovereign nations declare BTC illegal, it will revert to its original value, ‘zero.’ Meanwhile, the leading digital asset has not experienced any substantial loss in value since the Chinese government issued this warning.
Instead, BTC has witnessed a remarkable increase in value since the article’s publication. Per data provided by CoinGecko, Bitcoin was trading at approximately $20,000 when the Economic Daily released its article last June.
However, it trades at $28,852 twelve months after the Chinese warning. This current price represents a surge of nearly 36% within this timeframe.
China was among the first jurisdiction in the world to take an aggressive stance against cryptocurrency. In 2017, the government imposed a blanket ban on the activities of crypto exchanges within its borders.
Despite the prohibition, BTC price soared by 1,900%, reaching an unprecedented value of $20,000 by the end of that same year.
Furthermore, China’s central bank (in collaboration with multiple authorities from its special administrative regions, such as Hong Kong) announced a total ban on all crypto-related activities in 2021. The move was aimed at stopping all local crypto activities.
Interestingly, a few months after the announcement of the ban, Bitcoin recorded another milestone. It soared to new heights, trading at approximately $68,000 in November 2021.
Despite the ban, China is still the second-largest Bitcoin mining region in the world. This indicates that the government has failed to stop its citizens from performing digital currency transactions.
Bitcoin Shatters $30,000 Price Resistance
Meanwhile, Bitcoin has demonstrated strong bullishness, surpassing the $30K price resistance. The digital asset’s strong bullishness is fueled by institutional support and the use of the network’s ordinals in creating NFTs.
During the early hours of Asia’s Wednesday trading session, BTC experienced a significant spike, surpassing the critical resistance level of $28,000. As is often the case, other major digital assets recorded bullish moves, except XRP.
The launch of EDX Markets, an innovative crypto exchange, earlier this week was also a factor that contributed to BTC’s price surge. EDX Markets is backed by Fidelity Investments, the famous asset manager with over $4 trillion under its management.
EDX Markets introduces a comprehensive range of crypto-related products and services, including crypto trading. Moreover, the exchange’s launch coincides with BlackRock’s filing of a Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF).
Two other asset managers (Invesco and WisdomTree) have also made similar filings as BlackRock. These developments highlight the growing appetite of institutional players for digital assets, even in the face of a regulatory crackdown.
Another proof of institutional interest in crypto is the recent move by Deutsche Bank, a prominent German investment bank, seeking an operating license to perform crypto custody services from the nation’s foremost regulator, BaFin. Meanwhile, the Forkast 500 NFT index revealed a 1.34% for dynamic NFT transactions over the last 24 hours.
In comparison, NFT transactions conducted on the Ethereum blockchain experienced a minor decrease of 0.81%. Besides Bitcoin, NFT transactions on Polygon and Solana blockchains recorded modest gains, signaling their growing prominence in the NFT space.
