Bitcoin (BTC) might have suffered its largest coordinated attack over the last couple of months, but in this instance, the investor community did not capitulate. China outright banning mining in most regions after giving BTC miners a two-week notice and this caused the single largest mining difficulty adjustment after the network hash rate dropped 50%.
The market sentiment surrounding Bitcoin was already damaged after Elon Musk announced that Tesla would no longer accept Bitcoin payments due to the environmental impact of the mining process. It remains unknown whether China’s decision was influenced or related to Musk’s remarks, but undoubtedly those events held a negative effect.
A couple of weeks later, on June 16, China blocked cryptocurrency exchanges from web search results. Meanwhile, derivatives exchange Huobi started to restrict leverage trading and blocked new users from China.
Finally, on June 21, the People’s Bank of China (PBoC) instructed banks to shut down the bank accounts of over-the-counter desks and even their social networks accounts were banned. OTC desk essentially act as a fiat gateway in the region so without them it would be difficult to exchange from Bitcoin to stablecoins.
As these events unfolded, some analysts were reluctant to describe the tactics as nothing other than meaningless FUD, but in hindsight, it appears that China launched a very well-planned and executed attack on the Bitcoin network and mining industry.
The short-term impact could be considered a moderate success due to the collapse in Bitcoin price and the rising concerns that a 51% hashrate attack could occur.
Read More at https://cointelegraph.com/news/china-s-attempt-to-kill-bitcoin-failed-here-are-3-reasons-why