Explaining my message further at the Global From Asia Cross Border Summit.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nEven so, not many have yet taken action to achieve their own freedom using cryptocurrencies or other means.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Who Embraced Bitcoin in China?<\/h3>\n In the professional community of Shenzhen, cryptocurrency was all the rage during the second half of 2017.<\/span><\/p>\nHowever, most people on the street had never heard of it. Taxi drivers, acquaintances, and \u201cnormal\u201d people had no idea what it was.<\/span><\/p>\nThat didn\u2019t stop me from spreading the news. I enjoyed letting my neighbors know the latest Bitcoin prices.<\/span><\/p>\n\u201c<\/span>\u6770\u897f\uff0c\u6bd4\u7279\u5e01\u4ef7\u683c\u4eca\u5929\u5341\u4e09\u4e07\u591a\u3002<\/span>Jessie, today bitcoin hit 130,000 RMB.\u201d<\/span><\/i><\/p>\nWhere I hung out at the time.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nNext door was a traditional stockbroker. After he told me that bitcoin was \u201ca bubble,\u201d I especially liked reading him the news. <\/span>\u201cBitcoin\u2019s up 500%! How\u2019s the Chinese stock market doing these days?\u201d<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
What About at the Parties?<\/h3>\n There was a mix of foreigners and Chinese. I had people from the U.S., South America, Europe, and China. A few brave women entered the bitcoin arena, but it was mostly men.<\/span><\/p>\nThere were a few characters. Frank (<\/span>name changed<\/span><\/i>) had a local company building custom-made blockchains for clients. He introduced himself to me by telling me he could make the Michael Coin. He also shook my head harder than anyone has in years!<\/span><\/p>\nAn architect of Macau\u2019s famous casinos was in attendance, as was one eleven-year-old boy, who was well on his way to becoming a cryptocurrency expert.<\/span><\/p>\nBesides the party guests, most bitcoin investors in China made their decisions based on a friend\u2019s tip. They usually bought high and sold low. Many invested in Ripple and EOS.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
My Takeaways<\/h3>\n Apart from maybe one person, all of the investors I met (Chinese and expat) were only interested in cryptocurrency for \u201cthe gains.\u201d They could care less about how cryptocurrencies originated as a response to the last financial crisis and the tyranny of central banks. <\/span><\/p>\nForget all that. To them, it was: <\/span>What coins should I invest in???<\/span><\/i><\/p>\nI hope that will change in the future. Perhaps it was different in other parts of the world.<\/span><\/p>\nThere was a scene, perfectly <\/span>apropos <\/span><\/i>of the relative fortunes in China and the United States.<\/span><\/p>\nI returned home to Phoenix in January 2018, with the intention of hosting a Phoenix edition of the Bitcoin Startup Party. <\/span><\/p>\nBut there was no interest in my circles. None. And it was free!<\/span><\/p>\nI held a small gathering at a downtown bar and restaurant. Seven people showed up. Five of them were family members.<\/span><\/p>\nCompare the interest in Phoenix to the interest in Shenzhen.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nDuring the event, a crowd of about thirty people arrived, mostly young people in their 20s and 30s. What were they doing? Drinking, heavily while dressed up in pink tutus, fluorescent body paint, and hardly any clothes. My Chinese girlfriend was disgusted and asked why they were doing that.<\/span><\/p>\nI didn\u2019t have a good answer.<\/span><\/p>\nFive times as many Americans preferred frivolity to education.<\/span><\/p>\nWhat were Chinese of the same age doing then? Maybe not learning about bitcoin, but definitely <\/span>not that<\/span><\/i>. That is one of the reasons you see unbelievable growth in China and stagnation in the United States.<\/span><\/p>\nPriorities, people!<\/span><\/p>\nI hope you enjoyed this article. Stay tuned next week for <\/span><\/i>Part 2<\/i><\/b> on my RMB to bitcoin to U.S. dollars to RMB arbitrage plan, and <\/span><\/i>Part 3 <\/i><\/b>on the Good, Bad, and Ugly ICOs I saw in China.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n \nMichael, thank you for the insights and observations about the crypto space in China. Your pictures and story about living in China complete the image. We\u2019ll be bringing you back for parts 2 and 3 over the next several weeks. Our readers look forward to deeper understandings about crypto and how it will shape our world in the years to come.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\nThis article was published in the Escape Artist Weekly Newsletter on May 01, 2019. If you would like to subscribe to the newsletter, please click here.<\/a><\/em>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This article was published in the Escape Artist Weekly Newsletter on May 01, 2019. If you would like to subscribe to the newsletter, please click here.\u00a0 This week we bring back Michael McGillicuddy to kick off a 3-part series on Cryptocurrency in China. Michael lived in China for a couple years, where he became a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":238,"featured_media":24880,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[35,60,233,2363],"yst_prominent_words":[1827,1822,1815,1789,1791,1788,1792,1790,1795,1753,1814,1811,1796,1797,1793,1819,1812,1794,1820,1825],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/image22-800x523.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24871"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/238"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24871"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24871\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35343,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24871\/revisions\/35343"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24880"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24871"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=24871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}