Chinese whispers hit Bitcoin, again

Rumours suggesting the Chinese government was moving to block Bitcoin related traffic on its networks have been dismissed.

News stories about China routinely get traction without being checked and elements of the Bitcoin community seem happy to believe anything which fits with their world view.

But forum posters on Bitcointalk quickly moved to quash rumours that Chinese telcos were being warned to block bitcoin-related traffic.

The original poster quoted a supposed email which said:

"We got further information from our carrier confirming that business such as bitcoin is not a proper financial tool in China and the Authority may treat bitcoin as an illegal business. Unfortunately the China Telecom Authority has requested that all bit-coin traffic to China be blocked."

But other posters reported using China Telcom networks without problems.

China's convoluted censorship system, called Golden Shield, doesn't usually email people with explanations either.

Data from Sourceforge showed that Chinese computers were continuing to download thousands of Bitcoin clients - see here for the Sourceforge charts.

Blockchain.info also showed recent connections to China-based bitcoin nodes.

China has moved up the rankings to second place behind the US for Bitcoin client downloads, and shows no sign of slipping yet.

The original thread is here.

A previous Chinese Bitcoin rumour was that the People's Republic was about to back Bitcoin - the basis for this was a documentary on Chinese state television.

The Chinese government has squashed previous alternative currencies when people started using them in the real world.