Wheat-dogg's World ← Ramblings by a former physics teacher teaching EFL in Jishou, China ← Page 5

Bitcoin, Litecoin and Ethereum — oh my!

May

1

2017

JISHOU, HUNAN — It may seem like this blog is swinging toward the intensely techie, but bear with me. I’m your surrogate in the ever-changing financial technology (fintech) landscape. Government regulators required China’s Bitcoin exchanges to halt Bitcoin and Litecoin withdrawals back in January, and that situation still remains. But, when one door closes, another opens, as the saying goes. It turns out Bitcoin and Litecoin are not the only cryptocurrencies being traded in China. Yunbi.com is a Hangzhou-based exchange specializing in Ethereum, Zcash, Bitshares, and several other cryptocoins, as well as Bitcoin. I only learned about it a week ago, as it is relatively new. Curiously, government regulators have basically ignored Ethereum, which at this writing has the second-largest trading volume worldwide after Bitcoin, and just about every other token besides Bitcoin and Litecoin. Not that I’m complaining. Once I realized Yunbi would allow withdrawals of not-Bitcoins to recipients outside the exchange, I applied for an account. Yunbi required me to submit photos of my passport, bank card, and a selfie of me holding them, and within two days, I had opened an account there. While I may not be able to send funds outside China with Bitcoin or ...

Trying out Abra, a new mobile payment app 1

Apr

19

2017

JISHOU, HUNAN — While exploring ways to move my money more easily around, I stumbled across Abra, a mobile phone app that transfers funds using the Bitcoin network. I gave it a try, and I like it. For one thing, it simplifies my transfers from China to the USA. Before Abra, there were several steps to transfer money from my bank in China to my bank in the USA, whether I used PayPal or Bitcoin. Abra reduces that number, and removes some fees in the process. There still remains one major drawback: Abra has no working relationships with banks in China. So, I still need to jump through a few hoops to buy Bitcoin to drop into my Abra wallet, but once it is there, it’s a breeze to send it to my bank account in the States. I’ve done all sorts of stories about moving money across borders, but to review, here are the main steps. For PayPal: Log into my China PayPal account. Send funds from my Chinese bank to my American PayPal account. PayPal charges a 4% foreign exchange fee. Log into my American PayPal account. Transfer funds to my bank account. Not bad, right? Unless you ...

Good news from Huobi.com about my Bitcoin account 2

Apr

19

2017

JISHOU, HUNAN — The Bitcoin winter in China may be thawing finally. I can use my bank card at the Huobi.com Bitcoin exchange once again. As I related earlier, the new national regulations concerning Bitcoin exchanges seemed to have shut me, and other foreigners, out of the exchanges indefinitely. BTCChina told me flat out that foreigners would not be allowed to trade with them anymore. Huobi did allow me to re-register with my name exactly as it is listed on my passport, but I could not bind my Chinese debit card to the account because I had no Chinese ID number. That ended Monday, when I got a call from Huobi saying I could again use my Chinese Unionpay card. Huobi’s system now accepts my US passport number as a proper form of ID to be linked with the card. I also had to do a “video verification” by participating in a video call on the QQ messaging client with a Huobi agent. She asked me a few questions, like my name, the source of the funds I would be using, and my reasons for trading in Bitcoin. I also had to show her my passport and my debit card. ...

This term’s schedule

Apr

16

2017

JISHOU, HUNAN — Rather than blather on about Bitcoins and Ripple, this post is about teaching — y’know, my job. Last term, I had 10 sessions of teaching the freshmen and sophomores, plus a biweekly session with five Ph.D. candidates needing practice in speaking English. Each session is 100 minutes long, including a 10-minute break. This term I have only eight sessions, because another teacher (actually, the associate dean of the college) has taken the two sophomore Listening Comprehension sections. Whether this has anything to do with nine of those 75 students failing my final exam last fall, I cannot say, but the lighter course load is a nice relief. So, this term I meet the two sophomore sections on Mondays for Oral English. The end of the week is much busier, with Listening Comp with the three freshmen sections on Thursdays, and Oral English the day after. Each term, I settle into a new work routine. Saturdays and Tuesdays are what I call goof-off days, meaning I use them for non-teaching activities, like laundry or writing on this blog. Sundays and Wednesdays are class-prep days. I give the freshmen a listening quiz each week, so that means I have ...

Cherry blossom time

Apr

14

2017

JISHOU, HUNAN — These are from two weeks ago, when the blossoms were just coming out. Sorry for the delay. (Taken with with my cellphone.) ——— Tipjars: [paypal_donation_button]

Loose change found in a backup

Apr

12

2017

JISHOU, HUNAN — You know that nice feeling you get when you reach into a pocket and find a $20 bill you’d forgotten all about? Imagine it happening while you’re rooting around a computer backup file. I’ve been dabbling in cryptocurrencies, like Bitcoin, since 2013. At the beginning, I was pretty much at sea, and in any event it was hard to see which of the several cryptocoins back then would really catch on. Then, as now, I had small caches of Bitcoin and Litecoin on my computer. But I also had even smaller amounts of two other lesser known tokens, Namecoin and Peercoin. Neither of these seemed to be catching on, so over time I just forgot about them. Day before yesterday, a friend asked me if I could send her some photos I took in 2015. This required me to hunt through my backup drive for the pics. After I found the photos and emailed them, I decided to poke around my backups a little more. Scrolling through the list of program files, I came across Namecoin and Peercoin wallets. Hey, I asked myself, I wonder if there’s any money still in those wallets? Really, I had no ...

Epilogue to my Bitcoin dilemma: I got my money back

Apr

8

2017

JISHOU, HUNAN — So, after three telephone calls and four chat sessions on Huobi’s customer service chat window, I finally got my 500 yuan ($73) deposit back two weeks after I sent it. All is well now. I won’t bother you with all the details, but bank-to-bank transfers in China are persnickety affairs. The sender has to specify the exact bank branch at which the recipient opened his or her account. And my branch at the university is a sub-branch of another branch, so the system was not allowing the transfer to go through. Or something. Anyway, I got my money back. I am still unable to bind my bank card at Huobi without a national ID number, so obtaining Bitcoin using Huobi or BTCChina, despite my previous relationships with them, is impossible for the foreseeable future. In education news, I am spending this weekend recreating my lesson plans and syllabi for courses I taught in 2014-15 to submit to the college. Why, you ask? Well, the college needs to get accreditation (if that’s what it’s called here) from the provincial education bureau. To get it, each instructor has to provide detailed lesson plans and syllabi for courses taught in ...

Revisiting Ripple (not the wine) amid China’s Bitcoin clamp-down

Apr

3

2017

[UPDATE Jan 6, 2018: With the sudden boom in Ripple’s price lately, I’ve had some inquiries from readers wanting to buy Ripple XRP with Chinese yuan. The Ripple vouchers mentioned in this post are no longer for sale on TaoBao, and as far as I know, there is no convenient way to buy XRP with yuan available now. It is possible to buy Bitshares, Bitcoin, Litecoin or Ethereum over the counter (OTC) with the apps I discuss in this more recent post.] JISHOU, HUNAN — Out of curiosity yesterday, I checked up on Ripple, a cryptocurrency I honestly had not used or paid much attention lately, just to see what all the buzz about it was. I was pleasantly surprised for two reasons. One, the value of Ripple against the dollar (well, cents, really) has more than doubled since last year. It seems Bitcoin’s inherent limitations have encouraged investors to look at altcoins — the bazillions of alternative electronic currencies to Bitcoin — resulting in sharp price spikes for several since January. Second, it’s once again possible to buy Ripple tokens (XRP) using the Chinese shopping website, Taobao, or payment processors like Alipay. So, I gave it a try and ...

Update to the update to the Bitcoin saga

Mar

30

2017

JISHOU, HUNAN — So, I got a reply from BTCChina today to my inquiry about continued use of their services. You can guess what it was. But here it is from the horse’s mouth. Good day! Our sincere apologies for this matter. BTCChina will no longer allow foreigners to use our services. You cannot use BTCChina from now on. Should you have further concerns, please do not hesitate to let us know anytime. Thank you very much and have a nice day! Best Regards, Customer Service 1011 This reply has two explanations. Given that both Huobi and BTCChina had no problem before with my using their exchanges with a foreign passport as ID, this new policy confirms that the government is trying to restrict the flow of Chinese yuan out of the country, other than by official channels, and that government regulators want the Chinese Bitcoin exchanges to only deal with Chinese citizens, who would be easier to control legally (or extra-legally) than foreign residents. While I have not heard back from Huobi about my bank card + passport issue, I can now assume that they will tell me the same thing as BTCChina — that Huobi can no longer ...

Update to the China Bitcoin saga

Mar

29

2017

JISHOU, HUNAN — I talked to customer service at Huobi today, and it seems enabling deposits with my Chinese bank card is not easy as one would think — all because of the lack of a Chinese national ID number. So, they will refund my 500 RMB ($73) deposit in two to three days. If Huobi’s coders don’t edit the backend to allow linking passport numbers to Chinese bank cards, I may be shut out of Huobi indefinitely. There’s really no point in using an exchange if you can’t, you know, exchange stuff. Meanwhile, I sent an email to BTCChina’s support staff to inquire if I would have similar difficulties trading on their exchange. I’m waiting for their reply. BTCChina has this message on their website now. As with Huobi, I had already provided BTCChina with all that when I first opened the account a couple of years ago. Huobi required me to do it all over again, because the name issue I explained yesterday. I’m hoping I don’t have the same hassles with BTC China. In the meantime, if I want to buy Bitcoin in China, I can still use LocalBitCoins.com or BitKan (a China-based P2P service). While these ...

China’s new regulations for Bitcoin exchanges are a PITA

Mar

28

2017

JISHOU, HUNAN — If you’re not into Bitcoin, you may safely skip this post. Otherwise, read on to learn of my frustrations in complying with China’s new requirements for Bitcoin exchange users. I have accounts with two Chinese Bitcoin exchanges, and previously had no issues at all registering those accounts and submitting orders using my Chinese bank cards. But national banking regulators have recently compelled the exchanges to comply with KYC (Know Your Customer) and AML (Anti-Money Laundering) regulations, ostensibly to protect customers and cut off possible criminal activity, but mostly to restrict capital flight. Over the weekend, Bitcoin prices had dipped into the $900 range, and I was betting that they would bounce back. Assuming that these new KYC/AML regulations were not yet in effect, I made a 500 RMB ($73) deposit to my Huobi.com account. And nothing happened. Huobi did not credit the deposit to my account. Yesterday, customer service informed me that I had to upload a photo of my passport and a photo of me holding the passport next to my face. So I did that. Several times. Each time, there was an error message. First, I got “the image is not clear,” so I submitted ...

Living your dream sometimes has unforeseen consequences

Mar

27

2017

JISHOU, HUNAN — Here’s a bittersweet anecdote from the world of teaching. Last week, I was looking for a TED talk about careers to show my students and found one by a dynamic guy named Scott Dinsmore, who founded an organization called Live Your Legend. Since TED speakers talk a mile a minute, courtesy of the 18-minute time limit, I included the English subtitles to help with their comprehension. The freshmen liked it, so this morning I shared it with the sophomores. During the break, I decided to visit Dinsmore’s website to check it out. Since China blocks YouTube and Vimeo, we couldn’t see the video on the main page in class. When I watched it after coming back to my flat, I got an unpleasant surprise. Scott Dinsmore was killed in a rockslide on Mt Kilimanjaro in Tanzania in 2015. Everyone else in the climbing party, including his wife, survived. He was 33. Now, if TED had bothered to note Dinsmore had died, I might have chosen a different video. As it is, I should tell my students that living your dream sometimes has unfortunate consequences, but that they should never hesitate to take risks. His message, which is ...