
Bitmain Rival’s Founder Arrested as War of Crypto Miners Heats up - utopian3
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-12-16/crypto-miner-war-heats-up-with-arrest-of-bitmain-rival-founder
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aphextron
Given that rule of law does not exist in China, it's safe to assume this is
politically motivated. Who in the government wants him out of business, and
why?

~~~
bhouston
I do not know how it works in China, but could someone in the government be
paid by Bitmain to care enough? In the US they call that move lobbying...

~~~
blacksmith_tb
Lobbying in the US is a kind of corruption, but I don't think there's any way
to lobby to have someone arrested, unless that's in slow motion, where you'd
pay lobbyists to press for a law that could be used to arrest your opponent.

~~~
lidHanteyk
Lucky 10000: Lobbying in the USA is constitutionally-protected free speech.
[0] It sure does feel corrupt, doesn't it? But it's part of the right to
demand that the government listen to and consider our grievances. You can try
lobbying today: Pick something that you care about, and write a letter about
it to somebody in the government who represents you.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lobbying_in_the_United_States](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lobbying_in_the_United_States)

~~~
orf
“Dear constituent, after reading your carefully written letter and thinking
long and hard about the merits of each position of this tricky issue I have
decided to side with the people who donated the most to my re-election
campaign. Thank you for writing to me, your voice has been heard”

~~~
ethbro
Heard != acted on.

... But it also doesn't equal null.

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Zenst
Seems more like a tactical lawsuit, if they win they kill of competition, if
they lose - they end up delaying competition and in a market in which things
move fast, it may well end up killing this competition.

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neonate
[https://outline.com/Ed7kVS](https://outline.com/Ed7kVS)

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PatrolX
I can just see it now:

"Competition is bad, arrest him immediately!"

~~~
dmix
There's a reason all of the big western companies left China.

I'd bet money China's economy could be growing 10x faster if it had
independent courts and foreign companies who become successful weren't treated
like criminals.

Just imagine how many of us would be moving to China to start companies and
how much more VC money would be flowing in. And all of the global HQs and
products and innovation that would be happening there.

China's growth has been massive but it's a shadow of what it could be. Their
growth rate should have been closer to SK, Singapore, and Taiwan by now. But
they decided to go backwards:

[https://croakingcassandra.files.wordpress.com/2019/07/ip-1.p...](https://croakingcassandra.files.wordpress.com/2019/07/ip-1.png?w=700)

[https://www.nextbigfuture.com/wp-
content/uploads/2014/03/scr...](https://www.nextbigfuture.com/wp-
content/uploads/2014/03/screenshot-by-nimbus-28-1.png)

~~~
powowow
meanwhile Sam Altman is writing essays about how China enjoys greater freedom
than America.

If you think I'm kidding: [https://blog.samaltman.com/e-pur-si-
muove](https://blog.samaltman.com/e-pur-si-muove)

~~~
StavrosK
Where did you get "China enjoys greater freedom than America" from "I can do
this one thing in China more easily than in SF"?

It's true, by the way. I was in SF for a week a few months ago and the
constant need to watch what I say was exhausting. I couldn't even joke around
with my gay friend because people were getting offended on his behalf, much to
his dismay.

~~~
powowow
You sound like an asshole.

~~~
StavrosK
From the clarification question or from the anecdote of me having to tiptoe
around my friends in case unrelated people got offended?

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OrgNet
is mining bitcoins still profitable with the value being this low?

~~~
qiaoliang89
Yes. The only reason people are still doing it...

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SkyMarshal
Any way around the paywall?

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datashow
Also remember China does not have a real bail system. If you get arrested, you
are very likely end up in prison directly. You also can be disappeared (better
than be suicided) during the process.

Edit: No. I wasn't referring to the Epstein case.

Also, Chinese police has a habit of using force to rob the corpse of the
victim from the family who want to send the corpse to the 3rd party for
examination. For example:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shishou_incident](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shishou_incident)

~~~
cneurotic
My bad, about the Epstein thing. Ungenerous assumption on my part. Sorry!

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solotronics
There is rumor Bitmain (creaters of Antminer, see Ant Financial aka Alipay)
was really owned by Jack Ma. Now everything that was Jack Ma is now owned by
CCP I would bet Bitmain is the CCP.

~~~
dman
Any pointers on why / how everything that was owned by Jack Ma is owned by
CCP?

~~~
jacquesm
Jack Ma is on the record that this is nonsense:

[https://www.wsj.com/articles/alibabas-jack-ma-denies-
beijing...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/alibabas-jack-ma-denies-beijing-
forced-him-out-1537280485)

Of course, conspiracy theorists would say 'of course he would say that'.

~~~
gruez
>Of course, conspiracy theorists would say 'of course he would say that'.

That comes with the territory when you're a totalitarian state with no rule of
law.

~~~
mikekchar
These kinds of characterisations frustrate me. It's a horrible simplification
that leads one to a whole set of conclusions that are probably way off target.
No complex society runs without rules. By and large, if members of the society
do not follow those rules then the result is chaos. Clearly, China is not a
lawless state where people do whatever they choose and the strongest one wins.
It is a country with real laws and and vast majority of people need to follow
those laws. These laws are, of course, not applied universally. However, we
can point to examples of this non-universality of law in every single country
on Earth. The question is the _extent_ of that non-universality.

The other thing that's important to realise is that the Chinese government is
incredibly complex internally. There isn't some Bond-like villain stroking his
white cat all day and issuing decrees. It's a massive beaurocracy. Politics
are _crazy_. The totalitarian state does not act as a single will -- it's a
massive system of infighting and people trying to get the upper hand. Within
that system, each of the players will be using their legal system against one
another. It really isn't the case that there is any one entity that's just
making up the rules as they go along and that can do whatever they want with
impunity (as your posting implies to me).

So, I'm inclined to lean towards believing a more complex reality than "they
forced him to say that".

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droopyEyelids
I think you're totally wrong. China is not a nation of laws the way the US or
European countries strive to be. It's a different philosophy. They have laws,
but the laws are not supposed to be supreme over the rulers.

And there are TONS of examples of official lies, especially on the subject of
the ownership and control of large enterprises.

~~~
jacquesm
Here in NL our laws are also not supreme of the rulers. Frustrating but true
and as much as I would like to believe that in a court of law our king would
be held to the same standard as I would be I'm just about 100% sure that that
would not be the case.

Worse still, there is this file called 'crimes committed by the royal family'
that is classified until 100 years after their death.

This is why to this day we don't know the exact details of Bernhard van
Oranje's many escapades and crimes, some of which were quite significant and
yet ended up covered up.

[https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernhard_van_Lippe-
Biesterfeld...](https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernhard_van_Lippe-
Biesterfeld#Lockheed-affaire)

The combination of politicians and structural lying is unfortunately not
limited to China either.

