Fidelity Digital Assets published a report on crypto trends and their possible impacts earlier this month, including musings on the adoption of crypto by world governments.
The report posits that countries that embrace bitcoin might end up better off in the long run. On Monday (Jan. 17), Bitcoin.com reported that China, among other countries, has banned crypto, while others like El Salvador have fully endorsed bitcoin as legal tender.
The Fidelity report authors think the development saw two clearly opposing sides, and that there wasn’t a consensus on which one would emerge as the dominant narrative.
“An outright ban will be difficult to achieve at best, and if successful, will lead to a significant loss of wealth and opportunity,” they wrote, adding that there’s a lot of stakes at play — if bitcoin adoption continues, the countries that invest in it would likely be better off.
The report continued that even if countries don’t totally ideologically agree with bitcoin adoption, they’ll likely have to adopt some anyway as “a form of insurance.”
“In other words, a small cost can be paid today as a hedge compared to a potentially much larger cost years in the future,” the report added.
In other news, Kazakhstan might be losing its grip as a bitcoin haven, with big miners looking to leave the country following shutdowns and fears of more regulation, Reuters reported Monday (Jan. 17).
The shutdowns took place amid unrest in Kazakhstan, and the shutdowns caused bitcoin’s worldwide computing power to drop 13%. Kazakhstan has become the second-biggest center for mining.
While operations have mostly resumed, there could be more problems, according to four major miners Reuters spoke with.
The miners say they, or their clients, might be looking for new locations to work. They added that the outages were just the cherry on top of the issues already compounding, with people worried about stability and business prospects as the government considers more regulations.
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