While the Bitcoin price saw a nice rally today, moving up 20%, the news on Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies are currently mixed. El Salvador has announced to adopt Bitcoin as a legal tender which is bullish news for Bitcoin. However, in other parts of the world, governments are continuing to crack down on crypto. Such as in China where Chinese search engines blocked the top three crypto exchanges.
Top search engines in the country decided to block keywords for top three crypto exchanges.
China censoring top crypto exchanges
This is really troubling news. Before most of the FUD from China didn’t seem as bad as the market was reflecting. However, this is different. New users in China will have a much harder time navigating the web now. Furthermore, even experienced crypto traders will be inconvenienced if they use search engines to navigate their way to the exchanges they use. But it’s more troubling that this could deter new users to crypto.
Crypto Twitter for new Chinese crypto might be an option to find exchanges for them if China didn’t block it’s citizens from using all Silicon Valley Tech utilities. However, it’s very easy to outmaneuver these obstacles by using a VPN which many in China do. Still, like everywhere in the world there are likely individuals in China who are not tech savvy. This could make it harder for older generations in the country to access these exchanges, for example.
Decentralization is a threat to China
It comes at no surprise that China is taking these measures to hinder cryptocurrencies. The decentralized nature of crypto is a huge threat to the republic that likes to keep tight control over its people and the services they use. China tends to censor technology that they cannot control directly. Online platforms such as Facebook and Instagram are banned and nota accessible. Censoring the Top Crypto exchanges is the logical next step, when keeping in mind that China is working on creating their own digital currency: the digital Yuan.
With the creation of the digital Yuan, it shows that China does see the necessity of digital currencies. However, unlike cryptocurrencies, the digital Yuan is centralized and controlled directly by the Chinese government.
Final thoughts
This sets an example of how tech companies in the west could also censor crypto as easily. Donald Trump was deplatformed from all social media accounts last year after the U.S. Presidential election. And if they can come up for a reason to deplatform the President of the U.S., with all of the ransomware FUD going on in the U.S., could we see a censorship event for crypto? There is no news out to suggest this is happening, but it’s a bit eerie to think about.
If you enjoyed this article, you might also want to check out El Salvador Becomes 1st Country To Adopt Bitcoin As Legal Tender.
Aaron is passionate about blockchain and has been an investor in cryptocurrencies for the past years. He enjoys engaging with other people in the cryptocurrency community online, particularly on Telegram, and learning from experts.
