“I’m talking about China.” As the crypto narrative of “Chinese coins” heats up, here are five tokens to watch
Crypto altcoins Filecoin, Conflux, NEO, VeChain and Phoenix Chain, among several others, have been pumping lately. Because… well, China. (And Hong Kong.)
“China, China, China … China now, China … I have to have my China. I’m going to China. Don’t tell me about China, I know China. China all the time.” Donald Trump was on to something – just not Chinese cryptocurrencies.
So then, at the risk of looking like we’re blatantly jumping on the very latest crypto-narrative bandwagon, which, let’s face it, we absolutely are with this article, let’s talk about some “HOT Chinese Coins”…
…ahem, with the very necessary caveat that this has been a hard-pumping trend of late, which has the potential to slow or absolutely dump. Buy tickets for the unsupervised and unstable ride at your own risk.
However, if you haven’t caught up on any of our recent articles explaining some of the reasons behind this specific rise or boom of the crypto sub-sector, let’s just dig into it briefly first.
Why are the Chinese coins pumping? Why now?
When we recently put together our list of crypto “stories” to watch Chinese coins were definitely not on them. In retrospect, we probably should have seen it coming.
And that’s because China’s economy has been in the early stages of reopening to the world since late last year following the nation’s long, brutal “zero Covid” pandemic policy.
Although, to be fair, crypto mining, trading, and use are still highly prohibited for the citizens of the Eastern superpower. (Those who already have crypto, but – that’s, begrudgingly, fine.) So, for that reason alone, it’s been easy enough to allow Chinese-based crypto projects to be pushed well into a dusty corner in the back of the head’s attic.
But guess what? It turns out that the US is not the only global financial superpower in town to shoot and shake the markets.
And whatever scary thoughts you might have about China and how it’s doing business, from a purely self-centered pump-all-crypto-bags perspective, it feels a little refreshing to focus on a different form of financial dictatorship than the US Federal Reserve. . Even if it’s a little while, before the whole trend probably comes crashing down at some point, like a house of… mahjong.
As the Crypto Twitter account “tedtalksmacro” noted in a now widely circulated and quoted thread, China’s central bank, the PBoC, “injected $92 billion into the market on Friday,” which he notes “easily exceeds” the US Fed’s current quantitative easing efforts.
And which Bloomberg reports, it is China’s biggest single ever injection of liquidity into the economy – the second largest in the world, and currently 2.2% faster than the US.
There are some influential US crypto “leaders” as well who seem more than happy to switch to the “global liquidity” task when it comes to the crypto market. Co-founder of Gemini exchange and custodial outfit Cameron Winklevoss, for example, who believes the next crypto bull run will begin in the East.
And Brian Armstrong – the CEO of America’s largest crypto exchange, Coinbase, who a few days ago flagged Hong Kong’s apparent move to embrace crypto trading, which we covered briefly in our Mooners and Shakers morning recap.
Meanwhile, here’s another perspective, from crypto trader Andrew Kang, who suggests that all the regulatory FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) coming out of the US creates short selling in the market, which then gets “squeezed”, causing traders to buy more as the market rises higher.
Five “Chinese coins” to consider amid this froth
So, it’s about the size of it, although there can be all kinds of crypto-whale action, behind the scenes we’re pulling some strings that we’re not aware of as well. And that is now our daily mixed metaphor quota hit.
Without further ado, let’s briefly examine a handful of coins that may be worth a look. And we only identify those here who have at least something of their own narrative going on, and who we think have relatively solid support and fundamentals.
Filecoin (FILE)
Filecoin is the largest market capitalization crypto on this list, and describes itself on its website as “a decentralized marketplace for data storage, protocol and cryptocurrency”.
It is built by Protocol Labs, which is actually a San Francisco-based company, but the token and the project have historically been pitched to the Chinese market. Like Bitcoin, it is a “Proof of Work” coin, meaning it uses a consensus and reward mechanism based on the “mining” of the coin. Most of the early Filecoin miners were based in China, thus the token is considered a “Chinese coin” in some respects.
In March, Filecoin will introduce smart-contract capability when it launches its FVM (Filecoin Virtual Machine).
Chinese coin tale? Sure, why not. but Filecoin fans believe that the FVM launch is the biggest story here, as it will also enable a token-burning mechanism that could potentially see FIL become a deflationary asset, a bit like Ethereum.
At the time of writing, the FIL token has increased by more than 70% in the last week and month.
Conflux (CFX)
We’ve featured this one recently in Mooners and Shakers. It’s gaining some traction because it’s reportedly China’s only public, regulatory blockchain and has been able to form some pretty eye-catching partnerships lately, including China Telecom.
Conflux is a layer 1 chain that uses a hybrid proof-of-work and proof-of-stake mechanism. It also presents itself as a bridge between East and West, which really just means that it is a protocol that allows users to exchange assets across multiple blockchain networks.
In other words, it’s a Layer 1 blockchain interoperability play.
At the time of writing, the CFX token has gained more than 546% in the past week and 1,136% in the past month.
NEO, VeChain and Phoenix Chain
There are others, of course, and you don’t have to look too far on Crypto Twitter to find thembut here are three more potentials we feel okay about highlighting. Still, it’s best to be careful about throwing some of your hard-earned money (which you can afford to lose) at them, as it wouldn’t surprise us one bit if the market turns south at any moment.
NEO (NEO): Any crypto speculator who was around the 2017 bull run and 2018 crash will remember NEO. In fact, this crypto writer managed to buy it when it was called AntShares and then not selling at the peak of its incredibly epic run at the end of 2017.
It’s a different story best told while staring down a beer. But the Chinese-founded and based NEO is not dead. In fact, it’s been a Top 100 mainstay this entire time. And look, if the bull market is to come back with some force either later this year (or more likely 2024), and the Hong Kong/China narrative somehow endures, then NEO has half a chance to pick up where it left off – as the “Chinese Ethereum “.
At the time of writing, NEO is up 81% in the last week.
VeChain (VET): This is another popular, not-yet-dead project from “the last cycle,” and another obvious choice for those who have been watching the room for a while.
With Chinese origins and a Chinese team, VeChain built a reputation as one of the leading blockchain projects in the game to improve the supply chain. Doesn’t sound sexy, but it’s a frothy crypto trend/use case from before, and may be again. Similar to NEO, VeChain allows holders to earn a separate token in its ecosystem as regular passive rewards.
At the time of writing, VET is up 35% in the last seven days.
Phoenix Chain (PHB): Okay, here’s a frothy one at last, with a lower market value (US$61 million) than the others. A mixed potentially perfect storm of narratives – Chinese coins and artificial intelligence.
Phoenix appears to be one of those do-absolutely-everything projects, but essentially it’s a layer 1, Ethereum-compatible blockchain that allows businesses to build dApps (decentralized applications) that are AI-based and private for users.
From the looks of the website, it also has a built-in layer 2 scaling and oracle (like Chainlink), as well as its upcoming AlphaNet AI-powered trading tools platform.
The Wuhan-based project also has some notable partners and backers including: Binance, Tencent Cloud, #Hashed and NEO, among others.
At the time of writing, PHB is up 62% in the last week.
