Reports have it that China is now quarantining its used bank notes as one of the measures to stop the spread of the coronavirus. However, the people within the cryptocurrency community started picking up on the news talking about fixing the issue using Bitcoin as payment means.

According to reports, about 15,000 new cases as well as 242 new deaths were recorded within 24 hours in Wuhan, located in Hubei province, recorded following a change in the method of diagnosis on February 13.

Claims by Dovey Wan of Primitive Crypto on Twitter said the government was underreporting the numbers.

The official confirmed infected number in Wuhan/Hubei is now 50k, 50% of my back of envolope calculation 2 weeks ago, finally



There is always way to debunk untrusted numbers (in this case underreported # from the gov) if thinking independently and connecting non-obvious dots https://t.co/yfGPGESfsX — Dovey 以德服人 Wan 🪐🦖 (@DoveyWan) February 16, 2020

The latest report by the BBC stated 2,009 new cases and 142 more deaths. Official figures noted that more than 68,000 individuals were infected and 1,665 died.

Cryptocurrency mining facilities in China are being shut but the effect seems to be negligible on Bitcoin’s network hash rate. It seems the network’s performance has been stronger than before as hash rates continue to rise.

According to the founder of Quantum Economics, Mati Greenspan, it is not easy to determine the effect on the market at the moment.

“How it will affect Bitcoin’s price, I really couldn’t tell you. At the moment, I don’t feel like it is.”

A representative for mining hardware manufacturer Bitmain noted that they are not seeing any effect.

Despite the speculations within the cryptocurrency community on Twitter concerning the possibility of Bitcoin being the answer to the virus spread through banknotes, a Reddit post mentioned the launch of Coronavirus-based ERC-20 corona-coin (NCOV). The purpose is to make more people aware of the outbreak.

Featured image coutesy of TheIndipendent.