If China wanted to destroy bitcoin I think they could do it. Yes, they have that much juice.
One Chinese I know fairly well is vehemently and viscerally opposed to Bitcoin on principle and steadfastly refuses to learn or understand anything about it. I have to hypothesis that whatever factors effect her perception are at play with a healthy percentage of the rest of the population.
There is this black guy I know who is quite violent. I have to hypothesize that whatever factors affect his perception are at play with a healthy percentage of the race.
Asshats. Shameless libertarian asshats.
If there were one non-violent African to every million violent Africans, I might entertain your hypothesis. Or at least seek some explanation (and without feeling a lot of guilt in doing so.)
I await your hypothesis about why so few Chinese, as a percentage of the population of the country, seem to have an interest in Bitcoin. Perhaps it is simply their low inflation rate and general satisfaction with the leadership's stewardship of the economy that makes them highly ambivalent to non state sponsored alternatives. You think?
Do you know how to use the Chinese internet? Why not?
"The Chinese internet"? The ghost of Ted Stevens lives on!
Or surprise me with some cool links.
http://bitcoinstatus.rowit.co.uk/I'll surprise you with some cool math to boot:
10,000 / 300,000,000 = .0033 %
500 / 1,000,000,000 = .00005%
.0033 / .00005 = 66
So Americans appear to be around 50 times more likely to have Bitcoin clients running than Chinese.
Now why don't
you (finally) surprise
me with a hypothesis. There is no requirement for it to have any basis in truth. It's just an idea which could play a part in explaining the phenomenon and which can be tested against various observations that come up. There are a multitude of them.