“Help! How to pay the ransom?”

“What do you know about wannacry?”

“News about bitcoin everywhere? How can i buy it? Make me rich!”

Recently, a lot of my former friends come to me asking what bitcoin is all about, which is really, really weird, because they haven’t talked to me for a while. Ever since I joined 8btc, they cut me out of their life, saying they didn’t want to have a friend who is doing something illegal.

Illegal? What is wrong with these girls? Why the very mentioning of bitcoin remind them of illegal activity? Don’t they ever read news? All they care about is their looks and the latest fashion trends. They were right, maybe we shouldn’t be friends. When I got rich, I would buy more friends.

But now they want to be friends with me again.

They told me that last night they happened to find that CCTV 2, or China’s Business Channel, used ten minutes reporting on bitcoin. Plus, they realized that more news, especially positive news about bitcoin can be found on mainstream media these days.

And they are wondering maybe it’s time to learn about bitcoin. That is the whole reason why they thought of me.

I judge them.

Honestly, I am happy to see them want to learn something about bitcoin. And I am happy to see a surge in media coverage. It seems that bitcoin is not a taboo anymore. Now we can actually talk about it in public. This is going to be huge. (I am writing this while stomping my feet)

To remember this moment, I thought maybe I could do something like a survey to find out Chinese people’s opinion on bitcoin and do another survey one year later to see what might happen.

In order to find more people to take the survey, I asked my colleagues Jessie and Wendy for help.

Jessie posted the survey link on 8btc forum, Wendy Sina Weibo and me WeChat groups. Here’s what we got.

Responses from Sina:

“it’s a virtual code. it’s virus. it’s the very incarnation of greed. it’s a perfect way of capital outflow. it’s unregulated.”

Responses from 8btc:

“it’s digital gold. it’s a store of value. it’s credit. it’s a new international settlement currency. “

Responses from Wechat groups(mostly cryptocurrency investors):

“it’s money. it’s the best asset ever. it’s an IQ test. it’s shit(from a litecoiner). it’s initial shares.”

So what will be the future of bitcoin in China? Will it lie in the hands of the general public?