Regulation
Justin Sun Calls for Change of Stance on Cryptocurrencies in China
Former US President Donald Trump was the keynote speaker at the Bitcoin 2024 Conference on Saturday. The Republican nominee’s speech has seemingly inspired industry figures and lawmakers around the world to urge their jurisdictions to embrace a crypto-friendly stance and build a competitive industry.
Among these figures, Tron founder Justin Sun called on China to “step up” and review its regulatory approach to digital assets.
Justin Sun Calls for Competitive Industry
On Sunday, Justin Sun spoke about Trump’s appearance at the Bitcoin 2024 Conference. In his speech, former US President Donald Trump promised to end the Biden administration’s “anti-crypto crusade” if elected president. He also promised to fire Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Gary Gensler on his first day in office.
Trump criticized the U.S. government’s strategy regarding cryptocurrencies, saying: “For too long our government has violated the fundamental rule that every bitcoiner knows by heart: never sell your bitcoin.”
The Republican candidate also stressed that he would retain “100% of all bitcoin that the United States government currently holds or acquires in the future.” If he wins the November election, “the United States would become the cryptocurrency capital of the world and the Bitcoin superpower of the world,” Trump said in Nashville.
After the speech, the Tron founder called on the Chinese government to “step up.” He said China should “make more progress” in this area now that the Republican candidate has “pushed for Bitcoin” and US cryptocurrency policies have apparently started to heat up.
Sun urges for a change in China's policies. Source: Juntin Sun on X
Sun believes that if China were to revise its cryptocurrency regulations, it could lead to healthy competition between countries, which would benefit the entire industry: “The competition between China and the United States in Bitcoin policy will benefit the entire industry.”
Like Sun, Hong Kong MP Johnny Ng addressed Trump’s speech and sharing his perspective. For the legislator, Bitcoin and Web3 have gained global attention and have been used for technological and financial innovation.
Ng stressed that Hong Kong is actively working to become a cryptocurrency hub and is at the forefront of “compliant regulation and industry development.”
However, he believes that Hong Kong should work to promote “the industry’s technological developments” by further building “an ecosystem to attract globally competitive talent and capital, public chains and exchanges, enterprises and projects, etc. to the city.”
Hong Kong lawmaker proposes development accelation. Source: Jonhnny Ng on X
Will China Change Its Stance on Cryptocurrencies?
Following Sun’s post, community members agreed with his comments, saying that if China embraced BTC, “we could see incredible innovation and growth.” Others believe the industry could benefit from more countries joining in for healthy competition.
However, many investors considering the country has “no incentive” to change its current regulatory stance. Furthermore, some have criticized the US politician’s strategy of “being loud first”.
Over the years, the Chinese government has adopted a stationary position against digital assets and mining, banning the latter and imposing strict regulations on digital assets. Regulators have established these industry-unfriendly measures to curb the potential risks of cryptocurrencies and prevent financial crimes related to digital assets.
The drastic measures and ban led to an exodus of miners from the former crypto-mining hub. Speculation has since continued about a shift in China’s regulatory approach to digital assets.
More recently, Sun’s legal victory against a Chinese media group has sparked discussion about whether the country is softening his cryptographic approach.
Bitcoin is trading at $69,776 on the five-day chart. Source: BTCUSDT on TradingView
Featured image from Unsplash.com, chart from TradingView.com