How much Bitcoin does China own?

China and Bitcoin have a long history together. The first time the country mentioned Bitcoin was in 2013, when it was announced that China's Central bank, the PBOC, would regulate and monitor financial institutions' involvement in digital currency.

Now, we know that China is actively trying to shut down miners who process Bitcoin transactions through their electrical grids. And with new regulations coming into effect next month, we're expecting to see a big shift in how Chinese people are engaging with cryptocurrencies — both from individuals to central banks.

But how much Bitcoin is there in China?

Well, the short answer is: it's a lot. At the time of writing (March 1, 2018), the total amount of Bitcoins mined globally was 87.9M BTC with 11.7M BTC available on exchanges and 67.2 BTC "lost" (meaning they were never recovered).

The number of Chinese people mining Bitcoin is still unknown but China's Bitcoin mining pools accounts for 11% of all Bitcoins mined to date, according to Blockchain .

As Bitcoin adoption continues to grow in China, it's evident that the country will buy more of them. And with the central bank's new regulations coming into effect on March 30th, we may see a huge increase in Bitcoin activity in mainland China.

The Chinese government has long been interested in expanding financial control and control over the people. Watch this video from 2015 that show how regulators want to restrict rural families from using digital currencies:

China's Great Firewall has been preventing hundreds of millions of people from accessing some websites. Although they are only banning "illegal" content, what will the government do if millions of Chinese citizens start using Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies?

The central bank could regulate Bitcoin and make it very difficult for the average consumer to obtain. The PBOC could also restrict trading in the Yuan, thus creating a huge shortage of Yuan on exchanges. This would make people scramble to buy as many Dollars as possible before the currency becomes worthless.

This is why China's cryptocurrency exchanges will receive a major blow from the government with new regulations that are coming into effect on March 30th.

Many banks in China will be forced to follow these rules and stop channeling money through their users' accounts. As companies scramble to save themselves from getting shut down, investors will start looking for alternatives.

We think one of the best alternatives is Bitcoin because it has been able to scale fast enough for everyone to use it without slowing down transactions (unlike some other popular altcoins).