A Bit of a Bitcoin

Happy Thursday.

CNBC is reporting that Bitcoin has gone back into freefall, down 7 percent after one of the biggest Bitcoin exchanges in China indicated it would be shutting down its operation.

BTC China said it will close by September 30th, as Chinese authorities crack down on cryptocurrencies.

Earlier this month, China regulators banned companies from raising money through initial coin offerings, or “ICOs,” and since that time, Bitcoin has fallen some 20 percent.

In other news concerning China, Bloomberg is reporting that President Donal Trump has blocked a Chinese-backed investor from buying Lattice Semiconductor Corp., only the fourth time in a quarter century that a U.S. president has ordered a foreign takeover of an American firm stopped on national security concerns.

Secretary of Treasury Steven Mnuchin had this to say:

“Consistent with the administration’s commitment to take all actions necessary to ensure the protection of U.S. national security, the president issued an order prohibiting the acquisition.”
– via Bloomberg.com

Lattice shares were down as much as 1.7 percent on the blocked sale.

According to Bloomberg’s report, Lattice makes programmable logic chips which have a vaiety of uses, including in communications, computing and industrial and military applications.