While the world continues its battle with the coronavirus, the crypto space is moving forward with positive developments. Bitcoin price has been bouncing back after the bloodbath but where it will go is still provoking debates in the industry. In China, most bitcoin miners are still holding on there despite the price plunge, and crypto KOLs believe bitcoin rally to come soon. In response to the complaints from angry users who lost money in the crypto crash two weeks ago, two Chinese crypto exchanges said they would compensate them due to their system failure. As for the globally much-awaited CBDC, China is getting closer to its CBDC launch amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Crypto influencer says $100,000 bitcoin is “not hard to imagine”

Despite the coronavirus outbreak and its effect on the global economy, Bitmain’s Jihan Wu is optimistic about bitcoin price and he believes the central banks’ bailouts and stimulus injections could make digital currencies more valuable.

Prior to him, Changpeng Zhao of Binance made a more daring prediction, saying printing trillions of dollars by the Fed during the current crisis makes it easier to believe that bitcoin’ market cap could tap $2 trillion and bitcoin price to $100,000.

Not only these industry leaders are bullish on the price of bitcoin, bitcoin miners are also positive on its future with most Chinese miners keeping their machines running despite the price crash. The difficulty drop in bitcoin mining this week offers a relief to these bitcoin miners who have been going through a particularly hard time.

Huobi and OKEx to compensate traders who lost money in the March 12 crash

The two Chinese crypto exchanges, Huobi and OKEx announced that they would offer compensation for traders who lost funds due to their system failure during the crypto market crash on March 12.

The move came after angry users gathered in front of Huobi and OKEx’s offices asking the exchange to return their money lost due to exchange’s mismanagement and system downtime in the recent plunge, by playing funeral music and holding signs supposedly written in blood.

Under such circumstances, the two exchanges said they have set up special teams to process all complaints, claiming that any of those who lost money due to the platform’s problem can receive compensation.

China is one step closer to its CBDC

Although many believed the crisis brought on by the Coronavirus outbreak would slow down the pace of the CBDC research and implementation, it appears that the plan is still going ahead well despite the grim financial outlook for central banks globally.

Among them, China has been rapidly moving into the digital currency sphere and is being aided by big tech companies that are rich in blockchain and third-party payments experiences including Alibaba, Tencent, Huawei and China Merchants Bank.

It is reported that Alibaba’s financial arm Alipay has publicized five patens related to China’s central bank digital currency (CBDC) from January 21 to March 17. The patents cover areas including issuance, transaction recording, digital wallets, anonymous trading support and assistance in supervising and dealing with illegal accounts.

The acceleration of the CBDC plan at such a time could help turn a crisis into an opportunity. China sees its CBDC (or DC/EP) as an important strategy to give the Chinese yuan the upper hand in international economic development.

Industrial developments in China

In this week, governments in different levels have revealed more support for blockchain adoption in the region after president Xi’s blockchain endorsement last October.

Jiangxi province in eastern China launched investment attraction projects for key industries including blockchain with a total investment of more than 1.5 trillion yuan ($211 billion); Hunan province in central China this week announced 16 key projects regarding blockchain out of the 86 projects unveiled in 2020; the government of Shandong province in the east of China said it would improve the capacity of blockchain in supporting various application scenarios and would make every effort to build the province into “China’s computing valley”; Fujian province in southeastern China has introduced 12 measures to encourage enterprises and universities to focus on research and development of blockchain along with other technologies.