Chapter 169: The Crisis of a Small State in the Shadows

"Cyprus, a small Mediterranean country with deep roots in Greece, has a population of 1.1 million, of which nearly 900,000 are Greeks, accounting for 85% of the total population, and these Greeks have always regarded Greece as their 'mother country'. For this reason, Greece and Cyprus have always had close economic ties. Over the past five years, the Cypriot banking system has been increasing its holdings of Greek government bonds, amounting to €30 billion, equivalent to one-third of its total assets. Two of the largest banks in Cyprus, the Bank of Cyprus and the Public Bank, hold €5 billion in Greek government bonds and are Greece's largest creditors. Chen Chumo paused and continued.

"300 billion euros minus 270 billion euros, which is exactly 30 billion euros from Greece, are you saying that the Greek government will take off this debt of Cyprus? No, 30 billion euros is not a small amount, my brother knows the account, and Cyprus will not agree even if it is close to Greece. Without this debt, Cyprus' economy will inevitably collapse, becoming another fuse for Europe's financial explosion after Greece, and the EU will not sit idly by. Li Dingbo said.

"It's not as serious as you think, it's all in the hands of the EU. Cyprus' GDP is 25 billion euros, compared to 13 trillion euros in the EU, and the size of the economy is only 0.2% of the EU's. Even if the sky falls in Cyprus, there will not be a single wave in the EU. Chen Chumo said.

"Broken bones and tendons, Greece will not dare to ignore the life and death of its own 'son'. I think that even if Greece is forced to pay its debts to Cyprus, it will be a paid debt, and it will not watch the death of this son of Cyprus. Li Dingbo said.

"There are no eggs under the nest, and the Greek government has a lot of shit and urine behind its own ass, which cares about this son of Cyprus. However, they were not so ruthless as to watch their son die, but secured an EU bailout fund of around 17 billion euros for Cyprus. However, the EU has actually provided only 10 billion euros in financial aid to Cyprus, and the rest is collected by the country's deposit tax of about 10%. Although this is more than 10 billion euros less than the 30 billion euros that Greece has lost, it is certainly not enough to deal with the domestic funding gap in Cyprus. In order to prevent the entire economic and financial system from collapsing, the Cypriot government can only lose its car and attack the country's banking industry. The Greek government can rely on the debts of Cyprus, and the small and widowed people of the Cypriot government do not dare to trouble other countries, so they can only rely on the government debts of their own banks, or increase the government's fiscal revenues by forcibly restructuring the banks. Chen Chumo said.

"I think this seems like a conspiracy, huh? Saving people half-dead, so as to reap the benefits of it, is similar to a black hospital. Li Dingbo said.

"It's a conspiracy! The capitalist countries are mercenary, and they will not only divide the profits of Greece for the next 30 years, but will also take complete control of the entire destiny of the small country of Cyprus. Chen Chumo said.

"To control the fate of Cyprus? The EU's bailout policy towards Greece and Cyprus is essentially a war of aggression, a financial war without gunpowder. What is the difference between the war of aggression in World War II, it is outrageous that the EU has acted like this. Li Dingbo said.

"Cyprus is only a small country with a population of one million, and the benefits it creates are only mosquito meat, and the EU does not look down on it at all. The reason why Greece has gone to great lengths to control it is that the main purpose of the EU is to deal with Russia, another ally of this small country! Chen Chumo said.

"The total amount of deposits in Cypriot banks is 68 billion euros, of which more than 20 billion euros are deposits of Russians. If the country imposes a deposit tax and restructures its banks, Russia will lose more than 6 billion euros directly. Not only that, the Bank of Russia also holds about $40 billion in cross-border credit positions in Cyprus, and the banking and financial controls imposed in Cyprus will prevent $55 billion of funds from flowing back to Russia, greatly reducing the asset quality of Russian banks. Chen Chumo said.

"How dare a small country in Cyprus disobey the superpower of Russia, isn't it seeking death in doing so? Even if the Cypriot government is forced to regulate banks in the face of a dire situation, they can always find a way to compensate Russia and never let Russia's $55 billion freeze in the country. Li Dingbo said.

"Of course, the Cypriot government will not easily offend the giant bear of Russia, and in order to appease this large Eastern European country, the Cypriot government has decided to compensate Russia with the issuance of public bonds worth $400 billion from natural gas fields on the southern coast." Chen Chumo said.

"Russia is not short of natural gas, its own natural gas is very abundant, and it is begging the Chinese government to buy it. Isn't it a disguised sale for Cypriots to use natural gas to pay off debts? Li Dingbo looked at the problem very sharply, and immediately exposed the careful thinking of the effect of the Cypriot state.

"Yes, Russia is not stupid, how can it agree to a loss-making deal with barter! The Russian government has spoken out that Cyprus is a 'theft' of the property of the Russian people, and that their practices are 'unfair, unprofessional and dangerous'. In response to the EU's bad practice of holding Serbia hostage to attack Russia, Putin the Great imposed an asset tax on a large number of European companies stranded in Russia to counter the EU's financial attack on Russia! Chen Chumo said.

"Who is the dominant country?" Li Dingbo asked excitedly.

Although the weak countries deserve sympathy, it is indeed a wonderful financial game, and the EU's dominant countries have completed the invasion of weak countries and launched an attack on the hostile country Russia without much effort.

"Of the EU's 500 billion euros in stable funding, Germany accounts for 30 percent." Chen Chumo replied.

"Germany and Lao Maozi have always looked at each other unpleasantly, but this trick is really beautiful." Li Dingbo said.

"Now that you've figured out the ins and outs of the European debt crisis, what are you going to Cyprus for? This is a game between major powers, and this kind of major event is not something that we, ordinary people, can participate in casually, so I advise you not to go. Li Dingbo said worriedly.

"I'm just trying to understand the real state of life of the Cypriot people at the moment, and I'm not asking you to carry a gun to fight, as for the nervousness. Maybe it's time for us to witness the outbreak of World War III, or not? Chen Chumo said with a smile.

Under coaxing and deception, Li Dingbo and Chen Chumo flew to Cyprus, a small European country.

However, Bitmain is still at the bottom of the entire interest chain, and its asset model does not have a monopoly. In the short term, he doesn't have a trump card moat like Google has a page rank and Facebook/Pain Sun has social networking benefits.

Bitmain's current business model is still in the cycle of [mining coins and selling them at a high price] (or selling mining machines to other coin miners, and then selling stronger mining machines when the computing power increases). And the enhancement of Bitcoin's computing power itself is not the foundation of Bitcoin. The automatic difficulty adjustment itself is an adaptive adjustment made in response to the increase in computing power.

In a word, there is a balance point in Bitcoin computing power, which can effectively block most computing power attacks. Any more will simply reduce the effectiveness of the entire network.

Because the act of mining itself only keeps the BTC network running, whether it is algorithmic rewards or user fees, it will eventually be maintained to a level where there is only a small amount of profit. Currently, earning from mining is a necessary reward for early discoverers of value. Mining companies should benchmark themselves with basic service providers such as ISPs. But it doesn't have the territorial monopoly of ISPs.

It is foreseeable that ASIC miners will soon encounter CPU-like process problems, and Bitmain's advantage in miners will no longer exist. Bitmain's control over computing power will also be weakened.

It's clear that Bitmain is aware of this problem and has recently taken significant direct control of bitcoin ABC developers and has established ties with development groups such as Bitcoin Unlimited. Launched its own banker, bitcoin Cash, in an attempt to move up the value chain. The means of attack are not ruthless. For capital, even such a pie as artificial intelligence has been drawn.

At present, Bitmain controls more than 75% of the market share of SHA256 ASIC mining machines, and Bitmain itself directly controls about 65% of the computing power of the entire Bitcoin network, and actually controls about 80~85% of the computing power. It would not be too much to call Wu Jihan the king of Bitcoin.

However, Bitmain is still at the bottom of the entire interest chain, and its asset model does not have a monopoly. In the short term, he doesn't have a trump card moat like Google has a page rank and Facebook/Pain Sun has social networking benefits.

Bitmain's current business model is still in the cycle of [mining coins and selling them at a high price] (or selling mining machines to other coin miners, and then selling stronger mining machines when the computing power increases). And the enhancement of Bitcoin's computing power itself is not the foundation of Bitcoin. The automatic difficulty adjustment itself is an adaptive adjustment made in response to the increase in computing power.

In a word, there is a balance point in Bitcoin computing power, which can effectively block most computing power attacks. Any more will simply reduce the effectiveness of the entire network.

Because the act of mining itself only keeps the BTC network running, whether it is algorithmic rewards or user fees, it will eventually be maintained to a level where there is only a small amount of profit. Currently, earning from mining is a necessary reward for early discoverers of value. Mining companies should benchmark themselves with basic service providers such as ISPs. But it doesn't have the territorial monopoly of ISPs.