Quote from: Severian on October 21, 2013, 06:36:55 AM

Just speaking as an American observer, one thing that pre-disposes some Chinese citizens to Bitcoin is that millions were already involved in Q Coin, so the idea of digital cash isn't as foreign to them as it is to many Americans. P2P networks in all forms are also familiar territory to a lot of net users in China so the idea of P2P money probably has a little wider acceptance than it would here in the US. In comparison to the rest of the world, most Americans are stodgy and conservative in matters relating to currency. Overall, Bitcoin will probably do better in China than it has here in the US.

Also mind that Q-coin has a different position than Bitcoin. As said, in China (people think that) nothing significant can take root without being part of the government. This holds true with Q-coin. The company behind Q-coin doesn't hesitate to follow governmental scutiny - other big players baidu, sina all show obiendiance to the central governmental the same way, and are allowed to live. The game that is called reguation in the west is equivilent to the game of obiendiance here. So it is not the question whether bitcoin can be regulated, but whether bitcoin can obey. Bitcoin trading can be regulated but bitcoin itself bends to no one - which begets the question whether or not it will be allowed to live.

On the other hand, if Bitcoin becomes so significant that the government has to make a decision, and they decided to let it live, the acceptance of bitcoin will have no consumer psychological barrier, because, as you said, we are pretty familiar with virtual currencies.

On a side note of P2P: a centralized government can only do a handful of things at a time. The fight to copyright protection is dismissed as tirival. it is non trivial in the U.S. because corporates takes root in the government, where here is the opposite, the government take root in companies. In the U.S. big companies plant their people in the government, here the government plant people in the company's board (e.g. through Party Committee which exists within most named vendors). Besides, P2P video exchange, popular in china perhaps more than any other country, happens without much user's awareness. It is not that people are more willing to share, but that the commercialized P2P software does P2P in the background and the companies operating this ain't worried of being sued.