The City Looks To Grab a Large Share of the Multi-billion Industry
Photo Credit: South China Morning Post
While entrepreneurs in the U.S. face the prospects of potentially stifling government regulations of Bitcoin businesses and a generally unfriendly attitude towards the digital currency, their counterparts in Hong Kong enjoy complete freedom to innovate, create, and establish enterprises that capture a huge slice of the Bitcoin industry as the Hong Kong Monetary Authority declines to regulate Bitcoin.
The South China Morning Post reports:
“An influential digital currency evangelist says Hong Kong can grab a huge slice of the controversial multibillion-dollar bitcoin industry as US hostility towards virtual money increases.
Roger Ver, 34, a bitcoin millionaire, told the South China Morning Post that efforts to disrupt the digital currency money market would be futile.
“It’s not stoppable. They can delay it within their own jurisdictions [states] but that’s going to be incredibly short-sighted and damaging.
“If the US government tries to restrict or clamp down, that just means there will be many more bitcoin businesses in Hong Kong and Singapore and all those Americans will miss out on all the opportunities.”
Tomorrow the US Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs will hear regulators articulate the risks and dangers of digital currencies, while fans try to convince lawmakers otherwise.
Last month US authorities seized the illicit Silk Road website, and arrested its founder. For two years, critics including US Senator Charles Schumer had been pointing to the ease with which drugs and guns could be bought on the site using bitcoin.
Ver made the comments before he addressed the faithful at the Bitcoin Singapore conference organised by Hong Kong-based investor Eddy Travia.
Bitcoins began circulating in 2009 and have since become the most prominent of several digital currencies. The electronic money is transferred independently of traditional banks. Its total market capitalisation is about US$5 billion – only one thousandth the value of the global cash in circulation, says Johann Gevers of online payment platform Monetas.
Hong Kong has plenty of room to play a bigger role as a virtual financial hub, according to those creating bitcoin services.
One area is the remittance market to the Philippines and Indonesia, in which operators aim to send bitcoins instantly for a significantly smaller fee than traditional methods.
Mainland Chinese are among the biggest bitcoin believers. The currency lets them avoid capital controls and move the equivalent of thousands of yuan outside the financial system.”
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