The answer to “why now” is that they turned on their mainnet in March, so the farming for real coins began then. It got some press, at least in crypto land, and

The answer to “why now” is that they turned on their mainnet in March, so the farming for real coins began then. It got some press, at least in crypto land, and it’s very accessible to start small scale plotting by yourself. Everyone has spare disk space. The ability to trade coins (but not necessarily their listing on exchanges) will begin in a matter of days. https://news.bitcoin.com/bittorrent-creator-bram-cohens-crypto-project-chia-sparks-hard-drive-and-ssd-shortages/ https://news.bitcoin.com/bittorrent-creator-bram-cohens-cryp... Regarding China... crypto speculation is popular there? Big mining pools want to own something that could potentially become big? Unclear.