FULCRUM WEEKEND: Bitcoin, Ethereum Skyrocket on Xi's Comments, 1,000+ Firefighters Battling New Cali Super Fire
China’s President Xi on Friday reportedly told Party officials that the populous Asian superpower needs to “seize the opportunity” offered by new blockchain technologies. This was his first public statement on the new decentralized technology, which allows for everything from property rights to decentralized bank-like entities to exist, without the possibility of censorship or suppression.
China’s President Xi Jinping made public remarks on blockchain tech for the first time.
“We must take the blockchain as an important breakthrough for independent innovation of core technologies,” Xi told officials. He also reportedly said it is time for China to “increase investment” and “accelerate the development of blockchain technology.”
Although the Chinese leader did not specify which technologies should be pursued — and did not address Bitcoin or Ethereum by name, it appears — the world’s leading cryptocurrency networks soared in the hours after Xi’s remarks, with Bitcoin up about 30 percent at one point on the day, and second place crypto network Ethereum up roughly 15 percent over the same time period.
Xi’s unexpected remarks provided some much-needed optimism for the cryptocurrency community. Bitcoin, the world’s first blockchain which launched in 2009, is used as a form of decentralized, permissionless money — a recent study found more than the equivalent of US $11 trillion of value has already been shuttled along Bitcoin’s blockchain since its earliest days.
In other news, fresh wildfires provoked by strong winds threaten life and property throughout parts of California. Haven’t we seen this movie already? As of Thursday, one of the new fires was already 10,000 acres in size and 0% contained by fire authorities.
The largest of the new fires, known as the Kincade Fire, has grown to 23,700 acres in size, and is reportedly only 5% contained. More than 1,000 firefighters have been deployed in California, and authorities are conducting regional evacuations as deemed necessary.
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