Bitcoin made gains last week after new documents from the Chinese government revealed that the country was reversing its decision to ban blockchain mining, with President Xi Jinping expressing his support for blockchain technology. Back in April, The National Development and Reform Commission in China published a list of industries that it believes should be restricted or limited, which featured crypto mining.

President Xi Jinping’s recent comments in support of blockchain coincided with a sizeable gain in the value of Bitcoin, going from $7,500 USD to $10,500 USD in just a few hours. According to Chinese state media, Xi said that China has a strong foundation and should look to take a leading position in the sector, urging the country to “seize the opportunity,” which could benefit a number of sectors.

The support for blockchain and Bitcoin mining appears to be a significant softening in China’s stance towards cryptocurrency. In 2017, Beijing banned initial coin offerings, essentially eliminating the opportunity for cryptocurrency firms to develop. In recent months, China’s central bank has accelerated work on its very own digital currency, in an attempt to overtake the development of Facebook’s highly controversial coin, Libra.

While 2018 saw Bitcoin decline sharply from its peak during the previous year, 2019 has seen somewhat of a rally towards those summits at the height of the crypto frenzy. Since the beginning of the year, Bitcoin has soared nearly 150% but has struggled in recent months to settle about the $10,000 USD milestone.

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Despite recent rallys, some analysts remain skeptical that Bitcoin is in bull territory. Popular Twitter speculator Credible Crypto argued that the “bulls [are] jumping the gun here a bit imo,” adding that unless Bitcoin can clear the $10,300 region, there is no reason to get excited. However, China is by far the most active country in terms of Bitcoin’s hash rate, and the added freedom of mining from this news could be the catalyst the coin needs to return to those 2017 peaks.

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