|
|
China’s “success” in shutting down bitcoin mining will hurt China the most, says Microstrategy CEO MIchael Saylor. Saylor’s company obviously has a huge stake in the world’s first and largest capitalized decentralized crypto.
Microstrategy, a business intelligence firm that has made news repeatedly for putting its money where it forecasts, with huge buys of Bitcoin, has seen its personal fortunes plummet with the sharp sell-off of cryptos since April.
But Saylor says China and other countries rejecting or stifling the blockchain revolution will be left behind in every way, including financially. Speaking on Bloomberg TV, Saylor said:
“I think, given the bitcoin growth rate, this will prove to be a trillion-dollar mistake for China. It’s a tragedy for Chinese miners [and] it’s a geopolitical mistake for China the country—but I suppose they could afford to make a trillion-dollar mistake.”
China had been providing more than half of bitcoin’s mining capacity until their recent crackdown. As of a week ago, more than 90-percent of mining centered in the Sichuan region had ceased.
Saylor said he believes China’s loss could be a gain for the U.S.:
“It’s a great windfall for North American bitcoin miners whose costs are the same and they’re going to generate 50% or 75% more revenue for a while because the China business has been taken offline.”
Because of the way the Bitcoin network works, a drop-off in mining results in higher amounts of bitcoin being available to registered mining nodes, before their cap is reached.
Saylor also expressed optimism regarding regulatory conditions in the U.S. going forward, though that remains to be seen. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen talked down cryptos, but Saylor says the Biden administration also features a “new class of regulators [that] are progressive and more enlightened on bitcoin.”