May 4, 2020
Throughout the pandemic, Trump and his administration have been clearly positioning to punish (or retaliate against) the Chinese government for either 1) neglect and cover up, or 2) a deliberate attack.
In either case, Trump has said there will be "consequences."
This rhetoric has been slowly building over the past two months, but now is beginning to look like (more, bigger) conflict with China is ahead.
Pompeo has been the stern voice all along, against China, and over the weekend said there is a "significant amount of evidence that this came from the lab in Wuhan….that it's manmade."
At best, this means the Chinese government lied about it, and covered it up.
The early signals on this bubbling conflict may be found in Bitcoin (yes, Bitcoin).
As you can see in this chart below, Bitcoin spiked by as much as 23% in just two days, last week.
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What does this tell us?
As we've discussed throughout the rise of Bitcoin, it has everything to do with money moving out of China, and less to do with Silicon Valley genius/ global monetary system disruption. Bitcoin futures and off-exchange (peer-to-peer) trading are liquidity sources for Chinese citizens, allowing them to circumvent government capital controls, which restrict individuals from moving more than $50,000 out of the country a year. In short, it has been a way for Chinese (especially the wealthy) to get money out of China. |