According to a recent interview with Charles Yang, Head Trader of the OTC (Over-The-Counter) Genesis Block platform, due to the recent riots that are taking place in Hong Kong it is expected that there will be an increase towards decentralised systems such as bitcoin, instead, the interest in BTC seems to be at an all-time low.
“So the protests, obviously it’s very scary for a lot of people, especially foreigners, they don’t really see what’s going on. It is definitely escalating, like living here I definitely feel a lot more worried these few weeks than when it first started, but most people think in the crypto space when there’s panic in the mass market a lot of attention goes to things that are decentralised, so Bitcoin’s obviously a way for people to store value But I see a lot of retail clients in Hong Kong and there’s definitely not a sign of this panic buying”.
As a result, there is a clear countertrend to what is expected, contrary to what is happening in Argentina and Venezuela where there are always new record trading volumes for bitcoin.
The reason which Yang gives to this phenomenon is that the average man does not know bitcoin and its decentralisation and consequently does not think that it could be a solution.
“I think having your political views is one thing, it doesn’t mean that automatically it brings attention to Bitcoin, I think the average person that walks down the street protesting, they don’t even know what it is. They probably still think of it as a speculative asset, they don’t even know that it’s decentralised or something that’s related to governments”.
During the interview, Yang also commented on the America vs. China issue and on Trump’s tweets.
“Trump, he was obviously ramping up the trade war and FX kind of went crazy, so Renminbi depreciated a lot, people say China’s manipulating it. Korean Won did the same thing so everything went from premiums in July to discounts in August. Clearly crypto, at least in the Chinese market, it’s shown that the inefficiency is still there”.
Also for China Yang recommends the use of crypto.
“Everyone would have thought it would go the other way. Chinese people start freaking out, they want to exit Renminbi, they need to buy crypto, so you would think premiums are there but it just didn’t happen”.
