Blockchain Global Summit Moved from China to Hong Kong

Monday morning brought several interesting news from the world of digital currencies.  One of those news was about the Blockchain Global Summit that was supposed to be held on September 10, 2017 in Beijing, China. However, September 10th came and went by, but the Summit did not happen. Several days later, BitKan, a company organizing the Summit, announced the new dates and location for the Summit.

The Blockchain Global Summit will be held in Hong Kong on September 20, 2017. The reason for that change is the now well known China’s decision to crack down on all cryptocurrencies which caused a lot of problems in the digital currency market. It seems that the key reason to move from China to Hong Kong is the fact that Hong Kong has more freedom, besides Hong Kong is much more open towards digital currencies, initial coin offerings as well as the blockchain technology.

China Turning Its Back on Cryptocurrencies

A couple of weeks ago, China banned all initial coin offerings and that came as a huge surprise as those ICOs have been very popular in the country. However, Chinese authorities, including China’s central bank, have a different view on the issue. Besides that, Chinese authorities also ordered all companies that have collected funds through ICOs to return the entire amount of money to the investors, which caused even more problems in this industry.

Moreover, the reports from the Chinese government indicated that they might be preparing a bill that would make all digital currencies illegal in the country, which is a step further in taking down this market – at least in China. Due to that it could be hardly expected that such conference as the Blockchain Global Summit would take place in a country that is doing everything in its power to ban the main subject of the event.

China Isn’t Right for the Summit

The Summit organizers, BitKan Company, has said that they have carefully analyzed the situation in Beijing and in the country and that they reached a decision to move the Summit to a different country after realizing that the climate for digital currencies is not good in China at this moment. Even though the Summit will not be dealing with Initial Coin Offerings, the organizers decided to move the Summit in order to avoid being cancelled, which was a realistic possibility.

The organizers have also announced that the biggest speakers at the Summit, including the CEO of Bitmain, Jihan Wu, and the CEO of bitcoin.com Roger Ver, will be attending the Summit despite changing the time and the place of the event. Even though the Chinese influence in Hong Kong is very significant, it is still not enough to prevent this kind of events, which was the most important issue for the organizers. While the digital currencies are taking other countries by storm, Chinese authorities have decided to shut down all digital currency exchanges despite the Chinese digital currency market being one of the biggest in the world.

Written by Ivan Potocki