China leading next Bitcoin rally
The capture of Ross Ulbricht a couple of weeks ago, and with it, the demise of the Silk Road and the largest underground market ever, was big news in Bitcoin social circles. Forget the ethical dilemma: this market moved a lot of money… a lot… about 1.2 Billion dollars in sales every year. No small fry.
Much had been speculated by analysts and sceptics that much of the Bitcoin economy was stimulated mostly by these kind of illegal transactions. In fact, this news, was going to be the end of it: this was Bitcoin’s blow to its knees.
Except, that it wasn’t. Let’s say it was a stumble, if one can call it that. The price dropped for a day or two and recovered to its previous levels in a few days. So, if Silk Road wasn’t driving the Bitcoin economy, then who is? The sceptics are asking who else is accepting Bitcoins. No legitimate, public company does, right?
With current events in US politics causing some doubt in the financial world markets, China, the world’s most populous country with 1,36 billion people, is perhaps looking at alternative currencies… China’s State Press wrote an editorial yesterday with some concerns about this exact topic.
Today, we find that Baidu [NASDAQ: BIDU], China’s #1 website and #5 in the world [source] is not merely offering to accept Bitcoins as a form of payment, but making owning Bitcoin a “cool” thing. It is going to be a trend and any Baidu members should be part of it. This is China’s Google; publicly traded on Nasdaq with a $53.4 billion market cap [source] and a ton of members. It is estimated that 420 million people In China have internet access and 99% use Baidu for search. That is more that the entire population of the US. No small fry.
Baidu Jasule Accepts Bitcoin Payment 15 October 2013
How could we reflect the characteristics of a trendy IT person and a professional webmaster? The answer of course is to own bitcoin! Bitcoin as emerging electronic currency has already had a large degree of recognition in the world, deep into daily life. It can be used to buy a cup of coffee, and can also be directly converted into real money. In China, bitcoin is still a “fashionable” thing.
Today, I have a good news for everyone: from 14 October 2013 onwards, Baidu Jashule officially support bitcoin payment. Baidu Jashule users can use bitcoin to pay for any Jashule services. Baidu Jashule, as the innovator of the Internet, has become the first cloud services vendor to support bitcoin, giving us a richer payment methods and experiences. In the future, Baidu Jashule will continue to make more attempts to bring you more convenient payment methods!
So, I think China might be beginning to start this turning point in Bitcoin’s opinion and popularity: it is not currency used merely for illegal activities, it is currency to be used for everything, for everyday things like a cup of coffee or government investments. Currency they will likely integrate into everything that Baidu does. Just like cash, but better. So don’t be boring and be cool.
