Shiba Inu-themed Floki sees trading volume surge amid China plans

Floki (FLOKI) spiked over 10% on Sunday and saw its highest trading volumes in over three weeks as traders bet on the tokens amid a China-focused push for its Valhalla metaverse game.

Trading volumes for the tokens, which are fashioned after the Shiba Inu dog breed, jumped to over $60 million, up from last week’s $25 million average. The spike comes as ads for its Floki game featured in some Chinese sporting tournaments. This could have attracted some speculators who hypothesized that the move might attract new traders from China.

In a tweet, Floki developers said they saw an influx of Chinese-based community members on their social media groups.

Floki previously said it was targeting China in its latest push toward attracting more users for its Valhalla game, as previously reported. The game’s content and technical documents will be available in both traditional Chinese and simplified Chinese and are specifically targeted toward the Chinese gaming market, developers added at the time.

The “China narrative” has caught on among some on Crypto Twitter ahead of lax laws for retail trading in Hong Kong, driving up prices of some Asia-focused tokens, such as conflux (CFX) in the past few weeks.

Starting June 1, Hong Kong will allow traders to invest in some tokens, such as bitcoin, ether and solana, on regulated exchanges in the country. Traders are not allowed to hold any stablecoins, but the move has fuelled sentiment that wealthy Chinese speculators could soon plough money into the crypto markets.

"While most major economies are expected to slow down this year, the Chinese economy is projected to grow strongly,” said Floki core developer @100bviking in a Twitter message to CoinDesk. “J.P. Morgan projects a 4% GDP growth for China in 2023; that's 2.5 times more than what is projected for the global economy and 4 times more than projected US economic growth.”

“This strong growth will spill over into crypto, especially with Hong Kong legalizing crypto in a few days' time which is a sign of China warming up to crypto. There is a very high probability that China will drive the next crypto bull run,” @100bviking added.