How Tanks & Banks Bolstered the Argument for Crypto
Since Bitcoin was born in 2009, it has been argued that it’s the answer to state-level tyranny, inflation, and many other negatives associated with fiat currency and central banks. In the years since BTC’s inception, numerous incidents have bolstered the argument of pro-Bitcoin enthusiasts. Still, few have been as strong of a reinforcement as an alarming incident involving tanks and banks that occurred recently.
The incident took place in China that saw the country’s regime deploy military tanks onto the streets to intimidate angry bank customers who could not withdraw any of their savings and order them to disperse.
In this article, we’ll look at how tanks and banks in China provided one of the strongest arguments for those behind Bitcoin and pro-crypto in general. Now, let’s begin!
Your Savings Are Now Investment Products; Get Used to It!
It was an average morning in the Chinese province of Henan, the country’s third-most heavily populated province with a population of over 99 million people. However, things became less than average when people began trying to withdraw money from their bank accounts only to find their hard-earned savings had been frozen.
The central bank in Henan then casually informed its numerous bank customers that their savings had been turned into investment products against their will and were now frozen as a result. Naturally, anger began to grow rapidly, and protests began to erupt against the audacious behaviour carried out by the central bank. It didn’t take long for the Chinese regime to hear what was happening.
Protests are not a common occurrence in totalitarian China. Yet the country’s central bank, the Bank of China, has increasingly found ways to trigger the inner anger of ordinary Chinese people. Just a few weeks prior to this account-freezing incident, videos were released online of furious bank customers embroiled in fights with security guards protecting the Bank of China elsewhere in the country. However, this latest incident was the most serious.
Eerily Reminiscent of Tiananmen Square
Viral videos captured in Henan captured deadly tanks of the Chinese Army rolling out onto the streets to suppress the anger of bank customers, crush protests, and disperse crowds. For many, it was eerily reminiscent of the scenes on Tiananmen Square, where violent suppression of protests in 1989 saw tanks deployed to the streets of Beijing and the deaths of up to thousands of people (no official death tolls of the incident exist). The 1989 protests saw ordinary Chinese students raise their protest against everything from corruption to inflation that was running wild in China.
The protests had lasted for just under two months, but deploying tanks onto the streets of the capital is said to have been the main reason for the protests to disperse and end, especially when the tank drivers had no qualms about running over innocent students and firing live rounds at them.
As one of the most incident events of the second half of the 20th Century, the likening of the events in Henan to the Tiananmen Square massacre played a huge role in the videos going viral worldwide. For many, it was clear that the Chinese regime was blatantly trying to remind the naturally angry people in Henan that the government has no qualms about violently suppressing any form of protest. In other words, their savings are now investment products, and the people would have to get used to it.
The Tank Deployment Highlights Underlying Economic Issues
As the videos went viral on social media, numerous people began to underline that the threats and intimidation used by the Chinese regime were merely underlining various economic issues facing the communist country.
Some users derided the communist ideology as the root of the problems. Others claimed that the Chinese real estate bubble is almost ready to burst, eventually leading to widespread violence on the streets of one of the world’s most populous countries.
However, there were also significant crowds of social media users who claimed that the ongoing issues weren’t a direct result of the communist ideology but of capitalism. This argument is based on the fact that Chinese banks have overextended on loans to real estate developers. With the new ‘three red lines’ rules, various property developers are defaulting.
How the Incident Bolstered Pro-Crypto Arguments
For those who are firmly in the pro-cryptocurrency camp, the deployment of Chinese Army tanks to suppress rightfully angry bank clients from withdrawing their hard-earned savings is a massive boost to their argument as to why a decentralised financial system is increasingly needed in the 21st century and just why cryptocurrency is so important for ordinary people to own. Naturally, the incident in Henan no doubt saw a spike in traffic to popular crypto platforms. Biticodes is the perfect example for a website that ranked higher than usual post these events.
The Housing Bubble in China
The deployment of tanks on the streets of Henan has come amid a time of increasing rumours that the housing bubble in China is about to burst to dramatically negative effect. The country has seen a boom in people buying homes, but many of them are off-plan or “on the green”.
However, whilst the mortgages have been paid for these properties, many of the construction projects have been hit with major delays or quality control issues. As a result, many bank customers have stopped repaying mortgages for a property that they either don’t have or the quality of which is subpar. As this begins to spread, it could lead to a mass movement of people refusing to pay back loans for various reasons. Naturally, the economic impact of this will be dire.
The more people who refuse to repay their loans will put an insane level of pressure on the finances of the country’s heavily indebted property developers. Over time, this will snowball into more delayed property developments, many of which will no doubt be abandoned.
Some people claim that China is headed towards a crisis equal to, if not worse, the subprime mortgage emergency in the United States.
Final Thoughts
Whatever your opinions on cryptocurrency are, few people can deny that many of the bank customers in Henan wished they had invested in some cryptocurrency the moment tanks hit the streets to disperse their legitimate protest at being unable to access their own hard-earned money.
The decentralised nature of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ether can provide ordinary people with the autonomy and freedom they deserve. Both things are increasingly vital in an era of growing state-level repression around the world. The repression which has become so bold, that governments can take your money off you and tell you that you can’t do a thing about it.
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