The crypto market movements are largely dependent on news breaks and major announcements and in the digital age of “half-truths”, many times misinformation and fake news can also stimulate price swings.
Recently, a post on X went viral wherein the user, Alex Mason, a popular crypto influencer, had posted a screenshot of an article by The Economist magazine claiming that “China is going to unban crypto”.
Alex Mason’s tweet reads: “China is planning to unban crypto. The value of the entire market will skyrocket up to x10 times and will attract more than 1 billion users. This is the Chinese Communist Party’s plan to become the number 1 economy in the world and beat the U.S.A. Many projects already have Chinese investments and we can expect them to give extreme amount of X’s.”
He then shared a list of so-called “most profitable Chinese tokens,” essentially promoting specific memecoins and tokens. Alongside his claims, Mason posted a video from a Chinese news outlet that adds context about a potential regulatory change taking place in China. He also said that the crypto exchange Bybit had begun verifying users from China, which he saw as proof that restrictions had eased.
To fact-check the claims made by X user, we used The Economist’s website and also Google, searching for the exact title and similar words. No such article exists and upon further probe, it was found that the image is likely digitally morphed to superimpose a misleading headline on The Economist webpage, to mislead readers into thinking that The Economist was making the claim.
Fake news and edited articles from well-known sources are becoming a big problem in the crypto world. They can mislead investors and create hype around questionable tokens. In this case, Alex Mason altered an article from The Economist to make his claims seem more credible and push shady investments.
While discussions about China’s stance on cryptocurrency do exist, there has been no official statement from the Chinese government about lifting the ban. Any policy changes would be announced through government channels, not through influencer tweets.
The rumor that The Economist reported China is unbanning crypto is completely false. The shared image is a doctored version of the magazine’s branding, and no such article exists on their platform.
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