The earthquake that hit western China on Saturday morning yielded cruelly familiar images: the same lush, terraced fields, separated by ruins; red-rock boulders blocking roads for rescue workers; the white tile buildings of the Sichuan countryside, reduced to dust.The quake struck the mountainous reaches of Lushan County, which is still rebuilding from a quake five years ago that killed seventy thousand people, including more than five thousand children who died in poorly constructed schools.Though the full extent of the damage at the epicenter was still unknown, the 6.6-magnitude quake was smaller—in 2008, it registered 7.9—and the human toll appeared to be far less significant than last time.Twenty-four hours later, China’s state media was reporting that a hundred and sixty-one people had died and over five thousand were wounded.Rescue crews were struggling to get through gridlocked roads, and about a hundred and twenty thousand people needed temporary shelter, food, and water.For all of the similarities, there were some encouraging contrasts that remind us of things that have changed in China in the past five years.

In the 2008 quake, papers across the country proclaimed, in almost perfect unison, that the earthquake had “tugged at the heartstrings of the Chinese Communist Party.” At the time, I was in Beijing, and I rounded up the local papers and marvelled at their consistency.I looked online and discovered that Chinese news sites were in nearly perfect harmony, as well.One of the few Chinese sites that had anything different was the magazine Caijing, which was collecting estimates of the dead and wounded, and reporting that “many disaster victims have yet to receive any relief supplies at all.”But this time, there was instant discussion on Chinese social media: photos from deep inside the disaster zone; independent calls for donations—in yuan and in bitcoin.cách kiếm bitcoin nhanhBefore the day was out, the newly installed Premier, Li Keqiang, was flying to the disaster zone, and state media was quoting him saying, “The current most urgent issue is grasping the first twenty-four hours after the quake’s occurrence, the golden time for saving lives.” Top leaders have learned the perils of moving slowly or making off-hand remarks about it: in July, 2011, China’s first high-speed-train collision attracted nationwide attention.ltc in gbp

It killed forty people and injured a hundred and ninety-two.When people asked why then premier Wen Jiabao had waited five days to visit the site, Wen replied that he’d been so ill that he had spent the past eleven days in bed.Online, people promptly dug up headlines and photos from those very days, showing him greeting dignitaries and presiding at meetings.It may be several days before we know the answers to some of the questions: Was the toll much lower just because of the force of the tremor, or was the construction in the specific towns affected less compromised by corruption?bitcoin mining usb hardwareAre the schools still standing?bitcoin coins per blockIt was a weekend, and fewer students were in class, but Chinese people will be looking to see if the buildings survived.ethereum cpu miner

How will the government respond to complaints?Another question on people’s minds will be what relationship these quakes have to the many hydroelectric dams that have been built in that area.Yang Yong, an independent geologist, told the Financial Times that the creation of reservoirs in Sichuan has resulted in greater seismic activity in the area, because of the weight of the water, but it was too early to know if there was any relationship in this case.This is important because there will almost certainly be more of these quakes: the Lushan quake rumbled up from the Longmenshan fault line, a particularly active seismic zone that runs between the Sichuan Basin and the Tibetan plateau.norway bans bitcoin(Since 1990, that area has experienced twelve quakes with magnitudes of five or greater.)For all of the devastation in 2008, the legacy of that earthquake was only partly physical.bitcoin preis 2015

It changed the way many Chinese people talked about government accountability, charity, and citizenship.As China begins to assess the consequences of the 2013 quake, it will be measuring itself in more ways than one.Photograph by Zhang Lang/Color China Photo/APThe value of digital currency bitcoin topped $1,000 on Monday for the first time since 2013, marking a comeback that could see it gaining further acceptance.According to research firm Coindesk, bitcoin’s price rose to $1,008, short of the $1,125 peak hit in late 2013 but a vigorous rebound from its three-year low of $210 in January 2015.ethereum schoolDriving that run-up has been a surge of buyers in China and India, where government crackdowns on moving money abroad have resulted in massive adoption of the “cryptocurrency.”Still, bitcoin remains controversial.litecoin for cashTo its supporters, the cyber cash is an efficient means of payment and other money transfers that are non-inflationary and anonymous, avoiding the heavy hand of government authority over the currency supply.

To its detactors, it is little more than a scheme that can cost people money and also serve as a conduit for illegal activity.Nonetheless, its success this past year -- bitcoin has more than doubled since early January 2016 -- shows the digital money has staying power.Its worldwide value is now $16.4 billion.But let’s put that figure in perspective: That’s a mere fraction of the value of money in circulation, which totals north of $80 trillion (add in other sources of value like stocks, bonds, gold and derivatives, and it’s well over $1.2 quadrillion -- with a quadrillion being a thousand trillion).Introduced in 2008 by an as-yet unidentified programmer who went by the name Satoshi Nakamoto, bitcoin has slowly gained a foothold in the world’s payment system.In early 2016, some 100,000 merchants were accepting the virtual currency, including mainstream companies such as electronic payment system PayPal, travel service Expedia and software giant Microsoft (MSFT).The concept ran into trouble in late 2013 after hackers broke into a Tokyo bitcoin exchange called Mt.

Gox, stealing $450 million.Now that it has surged anew, a Coindesk survey of market participants had an optimistic take on the currency’s outlook this year, with estimates as high as $2,000.Bitcoin allows people to pay and make money transfers on a peer-to-peer basis, without an intermediary.A decentralized network of computers, known as miners, verifies and records transactions.The miners get paid for their monitoring services in new bitcoins.No central banks or national financial ministries are involved, let alone commercial banks and other money transfer companies.According to Grayscale Investments, sponsor of a fund devoted to bitcoin, the advent of the cryptocurrency is as revolutionary as the internet, which changed how humanity communicated.In a statement on its website, the firm proclaimed bitcoin would usher in “a similar revolution in financial services, where digital currency replaces our antiquated, costly and time-consuming systems.”  Meanwhile, the debate continues on whether bitcoin is a boon or bane.

The pro side of the argument celebrates:Bitcoin’s non-inflationary nature.Advocates sound a lot like “gold bugs,” who pine for the days when currency rates were pegged to the price of the precious metal.Gold-backed money couldn’t be conjured out of thin air, as the Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank and others can do.The total supply of bitcoin is capped at 21 million units.The scarcity principle is vital, according to bitcoin buff Tuur Demeester of Adamant Research.He has stated that bitcoin is “as if gold was invented seven years ago.”So when the supply rises to the 21 million mark, won’t that limit bitcoin’s growth?Every four years, the number of individual bitcoins is halved, a schedule in keeping with a rule imposed at the system’s outset.Its ease of transaction.Bitcoin uses a super-fast technology called blockchain.Ever try to transfer money between two banks?It can often take several business days.With bitcoin, the money is channeled in a split-second.That’s why Wedbush Securities in 2015 projected that, by 2025, some 10 percent of the (now $385 billion) online payments market will be in bitcoin.Its evasion of government controls.

A rash of bitcoin tranasactions have occurred in China lately.It’s a way around capital controls implemented by the Chinese government, which is troubled by its citizens transferring yuan holdings out of the country as the currecy’s value slips.Beijing has put a cap on transfers: $50,000, which is not enough to invest abroad.But bitcoin is the original stealth technology for finance.Goldman Sachs analyst MK Tang estimated that Chinese capital outflows in September grew to $78 billion, more than double the amount in August.As of 2015, China has 620 million users of web-linked phones.A similar situation exists in India, where the government is recalling paper money that it believes is too easy to counterfeit.Unfortunately, banks are running out of the new rupee notes, leading to an enormous mess.That has generated a big rush to bitcoin to get their money elsewhere.By the same token, the bitcoin skeptics charge that:Bitcoin provides secret money transfers for bad guys.The most notorious case was the Silk Road website, which existed on a corner of the online world called the dark web.

It trafficked in drugs, child porn, weapons and other illicit activity before authorities shut it down in 2013.The medium of financial exchange was overwhelming bitcoin.But many more such black market sites exist, helped by bitcoin.The British-based Internet Watch Foundation has placed the number of bitcoin using kiddie porn sites as more than 200.Cyber crooks also invaded computer servers of several hospitals and town governments last year and locked up their emails.If the institutions paid off the crooks in bitcoin, the victims would be able to unlock their systems.It aids in tax evasion.Because no third parties, like a bank, oversee cryptocurrency movements, the Internal Revenue Service suspects that bitcoin is a fertile ground for avoiding taxation.The IRS probe of bitcoin centers on a major bitcoin exchange called Coinbase.The agency recently asked a court to issue a broad-ranging summons of Coinbase’s records, in search of tax dodgers.Jerry Brito, executive director of the Coin Center, a bitcoin research firm, has labeled the action an unconstitutional “fishing expedition.” The currency’s value is volatile.