You're right. All mega farm owners are in it just for the fiat. That's not just a Chinese thing. In the Middle Ages alchemy was a study where people tried to convert base metals into gold. They wanted to figure out how to make money out of nothing. For farm operators, Bitcoin is modern day alchemy that actually works. They can take a bunch of electronic parts and manufacture money. I'm sure none of them said, "hey, I want the world to be a better place. I'm going to spend millions of dollars to mine Bitcoin to empower the people then donate all the mined Bitcoins to African relief, save the whales and feed the children." Mining farms are about profit. Profit doesn't come from holding Bitcoins. It happens when you sell them for fiat.
Exactly, this is not a China specific thing. Currently, I count 90% of the bitcoin utility is coming from speculation and long term investment, only very tiny amount of bitcoin were used as payment medium (and mostly were used in mining, drug dealing and money laundering). International remittance have the potential to grow, but that also requires bitcoiners to be extremely good on IT and have good exchanges on both end, not an easy task
Because speculation and investment is the major demand for bitcoin, it is very important not to bring in uncertainties in bitcoin, that will hurt speculators and investors' confidence and affect the demand negatively, even increase the difficulty in regulation front
Well, that's about the smartest thing I've heard yet. It's not about if it will work, if it won't work, if it alienates one group or another or if the change is blessed by Jesus. It's about consumer confidence and perception. Screw that up and we all lose.