U.S. senators tell athletes to avoid using digital renminbi, Chinese transaction volume rebounds… etc. – Cointelegraph Magazine

This weekly news summary from China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong attempts to plan the most important news in the industry, including influential projects, changes in the regulatory environment, and enterprise blockchain integration.

Olympic battle

After writing several months of articles about the ruthless actions of the Chinese government, this week we begin with the story of the US government. On July 19, three U.S. senators Signed a letter To the U.S. Olympic Committee and the Paralympic Committee, asking American athletes not to use e-renminbi at the Beijing Winter Olympics in February. The logic is that after the athletes return to the United States, the digital currency will be traceable in case China is interested in tracking foreign double athletes and sled athletes in the off-season training group.

Spokesperson of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs Zhao Lijian snapped back Senators “should stop causing trouble” and “figure out what digital currency is.” Zhao apparently believes that American lawmakers may not have the latest technology, which is what crypto enthusiasts on Twitter have been lamenting for years.

All irony aside, this shows that consumers are getting more and more involved in geopolitical battles around technology, and as CBDC becomes more common, this may become a bigger problem. Users can choose to avoid certain hardware or applications that provide data security risks, but avoiding the use of local currency will be a more difficult choice. In China, the use of cash has dropped to a negligible level, and most of the daily transactions are conducted through Alipay and WeChat. It would be a huge inconvenience to travel or live in China without exposure to digital currencies, and may not get along well with future generations.

Leading the pack

On July 19th, Cointelegraph reported that Chinese Bitcoin miners obtained Nearly 7 billion U.S. dollars in the past year, Ten times higher than miners in the second highest country, the United States. This year’s regulatory crackdown may break this trend slightly, but it still shows China’s influence on the industry, especially if large Chinese companies can continue to do business in neighboring countries.

China sales rebound

China exchange trading volume Huobi and OKEx rebounded slightly from the same period last week. In terms of derivatives, these two exchanges accounted for about 44% of Binance’s trading volume, compared with only 38.7% in the same period of the previous week. The game token Axie Infinity is still a popular token for trading, and it is the fourth-largest token in trading volume on Huobi on Thursday, after BTC, ETH, and DOGE. The actual gameplay has not really taken off in China. Although the website has not been blocked by the Great Wall so far, the number of visits to the website is still very low. Users from the Philippines accounted for 40% of website visitors, while China accounted for less than 3%.China brags The largest gaming community Worldwide, strict restrictions on cryptocurrencies may temporarily limit the growth of games based on public blockchains. However, speculation in game-related tokens may still be a strong trend.

It is worth noting that in the short term, imminent regulations make betting on exchanges a risky proposition. There are many rumors about the upcoming actions of Chinese regulators, especially against repeat offenders in the region. Regulators in smaller countries seem to be waiting to see who makes the move first.

Irreplaceable fossil

Hong Kong’s most famous newspaper “South China Morning Post” is about to launch An NFT platform For historical news and projects. The platform will allow verified issuers to mint and trade NFTs on the open market. This should attract a wider range of Southeast Asian collectors and non-encrypted local users, as well as governments interested in exporting soft power to the world.