OPINIONATED: Is China Opting Out of Crypto? Feat. Dovey Wan

06/28/21 • 20 min

This week, “Opinionated” co-hosts Ben Schiller and Anna Baydakova are talking to Dovey Wan, partner at San-Francisco-based VC Primitive Ventures.

This episode is sponsored by PumaPay.io.

China is getting serious about banning crypto. In a fresh onslaught on the industry this month, the country has blocked bank transfers related to crypto, and five regions, including the key hydropower province of Sichuan, have shut down the local miners. OTC desk operators are getting arrested en masse and mentions of crypto exchanges are getting censored on social media.

The market responded with another downfall starting June 21, Chinese miners are reportedly relocating to other countries, including the U.S., and crypto firms are looking for ways to survive in China without serving Chinese clients.

Dovey Wan has a good grasp of the way things operate in China, and she aptly unpacks the intricacies of the country’s power structure and the main forces behind the political and economic events.

Listen to the “Opinionated” co-hosts Ben Schiller and Anna Baydakova talking with Dovey about this latest crackdown, what it might be driven by and why it should be taken very seriously. Is China letting its crypto dominance go? How can this change the global crypto market, for good or bad?

Dovey Wan’s Twitter handle is: @DoveyWan.

CoinDesk stories mentioned in this episode:

750,000,000 PMA tokens are now up for grabs. By depositing today, you will become part of the next evolution of DeFi payments. Go to PumaPay.io.

Image credit: Andriy onufriyenko/iStock/Getty Images Plus/ modified by Coindesk

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This week, “Opinionated” co-hosts Ben Schiller and Anna Baydakova are talking to Dovey Wan, partner at San-Francisco-based VC Primitive Ventures.

This episode is sponsored by PumaPay.io.

Dovey Wan has a good grasp of the way things operate in China, and she aptly unpacks the intricacies of the country’s power structure and the main forces behind the political and economic events.

Dovey Wan’s Twitter handle is: @DoveyWan.

CoinDesk stories mentioned in this episode:

750,000,000 PMA tokens are now up for grabs. By depositing today, you will become part of the next evolution of DeFi payments. Go to PumaPay.io.

Image credit: Andriy onufriyenko/iStock/Getty Images Plus/ modified by Coindesk

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at

Previous Episode

OPINIONATED: Facts and Misinformation About ‘Green Bitcoin,’ With Jonathan Koomey

This week, “Opinionated” co-hosts Ben Schiller, Anna Baydakova and Danny Nelson are talking to Jonathan Koomey, researcher and book author.

This episode is sponsored by PumaPay.io.

Koomey, the author of “Turning Numbers into Knowledge: Mastering the Art of Problem Solving” and “Cold Cash, Cool Climate: Science-Based Advice for Ecological Entrepreneurs,” spent a lot of time studying and debunking the current narrative around bitcoin’s impact on the environment.

In 2019, he conducted a study for CoinCenter, titled “Estimating Bitcoin Electricity Use: A Beginner’s Guide,” where he separates real numbers from baseless assumptions. Koomey likes to run numbers and he’s indifferent to bitcoin, so he stays cool above the raging fire of the bitcoin climate debates.

How much electricity does bitcoin actually consume? Is it a lot, and compared to what? What are the most reliable sources of actual numbers? Is buying carbon offsets a good way to make your bitcoin “green”?

Listen as Anna, Ben and Danny discuss these complicated topics with Jonathan.

Jonathan Koomey’s Twitter handle is: @jgkoomey.

Materials mentioned in this episodes:

Jonathan Koomey’s research for CoinCenter: “Estimating Bitcoin Electricity Use: A Beginner’s Guide”
Jonathan Koomey’s books: “Turning Numbers into Knowledge: Mastering the Art of Problem Solving” and “Cold Cash, Cool Climate: Science-Based Advice for Ecological Entrepreneurs”
Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance: Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index (CBECI)
Danny Cullenward and David G. Victor, Making Climate Policy Work

750,000,000 PMA tokens are now up for grabs. By depositing today, you will become part of the next evolution of DeFi payments. Go to PumaPay.io.

Image credit: D-Keine /iStock/Getty Images Plus/ modified by Coindesk

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Next Episode

OPINIONATED: Where Did all the Blockchain Consortia Go? Feat. Paul Brody

This week on “Opinionated,” Ben Schiller and co-host Anna Baydakova are joined by Paul Brody, head of blockchain at consulting powerhouse EY.

This episode is sponsored by Unique One Network and Mimo.

If you read CoinDesk in 2017 and 2018, you’d have come across many stories like this:

Big Company joins Big Industry Blockchain Consortium to work on technology set to shake up Everything.

These days, many of those consortia are closed, others are barely issuing press releases, and “enterprise blockchain” is often struggling to take off.

In recent months, IBM has laid off most of its blockchain services staff and Microsoft has shuttered its Azure-based blockchain-as-a-service platform.

What happened?

Blockchain industry veteran Paul Brody unpacks why many corporate blockchain projects fail, and what works and doesn’t work when companies adopt decentralized technology.

He pinpoints where blockchain is having a dramatic impact, the validation that comes from DeFi and how blockchains can re-engineer enterprises in the years ahead.

Brody’s Twitter is: @pbrody

CoinDesk stories mentioned in this episode:

Brody: Web 3.0 Is Coming for the Sharing Economy

Brody: Public Blockchains Are Set to Reshape Global Commerce

IBM Blockchain Is a Shell of Its Former Self After Revenue Misses, Job Cuts: Sources

Microsoft to Shutter its Azure Blockchain Service This Autumn

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