Bitcoin has been on a tear, and some of that may be due to our friends in the East.

The U.S. and China have been in a much publicized trade war.

With the U.S. saying they are tired of China enjoying an unfair trade agreement between the two partners.

And China saying, well we'd like to keep our current agreement so we can keep our rapidly growing economy humming along.

The U.S. has announced several tariffs on Chinese goods which is likely going to hurt China.

Their response?

They are slapping tariffs on U.S. goods as well.

However, there are also rumors that they are piling into bitcoin as a way to avoid U.S. sanctions/tariffs.

It is hard to say whether there is much truth to this as the Chinese government has come down pretty hard on bitcoin, cryptocurrency, and bitcoin miners as of late.

Making it all the more difficult to participate in the cryptocurrency markets for Chinese based investors.

However, looking at data from LocalBitcoins we can see that China has seen a rise in trading activity between their local fiat currency and bitcoin:

(Source: https://www.ccn.com/meteoric-bitcoin-rally-wont-rescue-nvidias-flailing-stock/)

In March, China was the 5th largest in terms of volume by country on the peer to peer exchange.

And a closer look reveals a spike in the last few weeks as well.

Tough to say for sure...

Whether China is driving this recent price surge is up for debate, but it isn't out the realm of possibilities that the geopolitical uncertainty is causing a flight to bitcoin, and possibly by the Chinese as well.

Stay informed my friends.

-Doc