During a recent interview with Bloomberg, Michael Saylor spoke about the adverse short-term effects of China’s latest crackdown on Bitcoin mining. While he acknowledged the hashrate and price declines, Saylor believes this ‘mistake’ from the Asian country is an excellent opportunity for others.
China intensified its crackdown on the cryptocurrency space this year and ordered bitcoin miners to cease operations, citing environmental issues.
China is the country that has the largest share of BTC mining, and these actions impacted the network immediately. Not only prices started to fall, but also the hashrate sunk to a multi-month low.
Some reports indicated that some miners are relocating to other countries like Kazakhstan and the US, and there are already signs of recovery.
Michael Saylor commented on this topic while speaking to Bloomberg and attributed the price drops to Chinese miners being forced to liquidate their positions.
Saylor called China’s decision to oust miners a “trillion-dollar mistake” for the country, which could actually provide opportunities for others.
“China had a 50% market share of Bitcoin, and they were generating $10 billion a year and a business that was growing 100% year over year. And then, the government cracked down on it and squeezed the entire industry out of China. I think that given the growth rate of Bitcoin, this will turn out to be a trillion-dollar mistake for China.”
Although Saylor pointed out that a nation as powerful as China could “afford to make a trillion-dollar mistake,” he still classified the move as a “tragedy.”
In any case, the low prices are a “great opportunity for Western investors,” including the company he runs, to accumulate more portions of the asset at a discount.
Saylor believes North American Bitcoin miners will also benefit from this, saying:
“Their cost is the same, but they are going to generate 50% more revenue or 75% more revenue for quite a while.”
Source: Michael Saylor: China's BTC Mining Ban Is A Trillion-Dollar Mistake – Fintechs.fi