Authoritative and dependable Chinese crypto publication, CnLedger, has reported that Chinese merchants are now legally allowed to accept cryptos as payment methods. Reports further state that the Shenzhen court of international arbitration has officially recognized Bitcoin as property, a move that will allow individuals as well as business entities to own and transfer bitcoin without getting into loggerheads with existing financial regulations. According to the Chinese court, Bitcoin is backed by law which was the court’s determination in a case earlier handled which involved crypto.
Messari crypto-currency researcher, Katherine Wu, analyzed the court documentation made available by the Shenzhen court of arbitration in order to make sense of the court’s decision to rule Bitcoin as property. After analyzing the paperwork, Wu explained that Bitcoins decentralized nature meant financial freedom and was of significant economic value to the owner which explained why the coin was ruled as property. The party appearing in court presented the case that Bitcoin had characteristics of property (SOV) since it can be controlled by the owner and holds solid economic significance to the owner and does not contravene any laws, a sentiment that Wu agrees with.
The court went on to assert that regardless of the legality of Bitcoin and other major cryptos in China, the circulation of Bitcoin was not illegal, meaning that merchants were free to transact in cryptos by accepting payments in crypto from their customers. The arbitrator’s view in full was that though Bitcoin did not necessarily enjoy the same rights as Fiat, holding or paying using Bitcoin was not illegal and should, therefore, be allowed.
The Beijing Sci-tech Report (BSTR), China’s oldest tech publication announced plans of accepting Bitcoins as payment for yearly subscriptions in order to promote the usage of the Blockchain and providing more dominant use cases for the cryptocurrency. Beginning 2019, the yearly subscription of the publication’s magazine will cost 0.01 BTC translating to around 65 dollars in Fiat. In case of a price shoot, the publication would compensate customers. Acceptance of crypto as a payment method is also creeping into the hospitality industry with hotels in major Chinese cities beginning to accept cryptos as payment.
One of these hotels includes one that has branded itself, Ethereum hotel, which provides discounts and merits to those paying for their services using Ethereum. It is now becoming apparent that China’s earlier ban on cryptos was because of the fear of the devaluation of the Yuan. Overall though, the government remains open to crypto and with the more government agencies beginning to back cryptos, the future looks bright for crypto.
