Am i your friend the bitcoin millionaire
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The digital currency Bitcoin was invented in and began making headlines in , attracting converts and speculators alike. We talked to Eric Mu, a Chinese entrepreneur who runs SinoHash , a Bitcoin mining facility in China, and says he became engrossed with the idea of a monetary system that could bypass the state.
China provides a natural place for Bitcoin to take off, Mu believes, and he has staked out his plot in the virtual mining community while Chinese regulators have been content with a soft approach. SinoHash is a Bitcoin mining facility based in China. Like other mining facilities, it generates revenue in Bitcoin by running a large amount of dedicated computing equipment that consumes a large amount of electricity — one megawatt in our case.
In the Bitcoin system, mining serves the function of securing the network against fraudulent transactions and miners are rewarded for contributing this utility. SinoHash is also a miner hosting service — customers buy hardware equipment and ship them to our facility.
This service is not unique for people who are familiar with the space. There are facilities located in the United States, too. The decision was made mainly due to the cool climate and cheap power supply. Our cheap electricity is a main draw for clients. But we have appealed to a small group of investors and it has been fairly lucrative over the past few years.
I first learned about Bitcoin in and quickly grew engrossed with it. The idea of government-less currency resonated with me and I began to look for ways to get more involved.
I tried a few jobs at Bitcoin startups and this eventually led to building my own Bitcoin mining facility and hosting service. There is evidence that it is concerned with a potential speculative bubble, which is often attributed to its ban of banks from directly handling Bitcoin-related business. When it comes to mining, there is little regulation and interference. Due to the nature of Bitcoin, there has been lack of reliable data in this regard.
There is a small group of frequent day traders — my guess is a few tens of thousands. Meanwhile, there is a much larger population of people who occasionally buy and sell to fulfill a need. They often do this through face-to-face transactions or social payment tools, which is very hard to monitor. I, for example, often facilitate people to buy Bitcoins using WeChat payment.
I have a friend, an American expat living in Beijing, who regularly buys Bitcoins worth tens of thousands in yuan every month through me, and he has done this consistently for at least eight months. China has all the right conditions for it to grow. Here are some of what I think are the most important factors: Historically, the savings rate is much higher here and Bitcoin has proven to be a resilient store of value.
Some of the most well funded startups in the space are probably in the United States. I think it has a good chance to exceed the USD1, mark once again. After that, the sky is the limit.
Jeremy Goldkorn , Editor, SupChina. This article is published in collaboration with SupChina. The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum. We are using cookies to give you the best experience on our site. By continuing to use our site, you are agreeing to our use of cookies. Jeremy Goldkorn Editor, SupChina.
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