As Exchanges Pause Withdrawals, Chinese Bitcoin Investors Switch to P2P Trading
The trading vacuum created by the stringent measures and close scrutiny by the People Bank of China’s (PBoC) upon the country’s bitcoin exchanges has led to traders flocking to alternative platforms. According to Coin.Dance, bitcoin trading volumes on prominent peer-to-peer (P2P) exchange platform LocalBitcoins reached an all-time high during the past week. The same week that saw two of the biggest Chinese bitcoin exchanges., OkCoin and Huobi, freeze withdrawals for up to a month. Other smaller exchanges have since followed, with the likes ofYunbi, BTC100 and BTCTrade strengthening....
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Major Chinese exchange BTCChina has announced the suspension of bitcoin and litecoin withdrawals. In effect, all of China’s ‘big 3’ bitcoin exchanges have now enforced a month-long suspension of cryptocurrency withdrawals. The suspension will last until March 15th as the exchange underlines the move as a compliance measure after the central bank’s crackdown against bitcoin exchanges in the country continues. In an announcement on its homepage, the bitcoin exchange underlines the same reasons offered by the two other major exchanges in OkCoin and Huobi, both of whom suspended withdrawals a....
A senior Chinese central bank official who leads the department investigating bitcoin exchanges has revealed telling insights into authorities’ current stance on the bitcoin industry in China. Since the turn of the year, the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) has taken a notable interest in the local bitcoin industry. The bank’s officials have spoken to representatives from the big Chinese exchanges, conducted ‘on-site inspections’ of these exchanges and have wielded their authority to force the industry into making a handful of notable changes. Putting an end to zero-fee trading and margin....
What exactly is bitcoin’s price? $1,174 as Coinbase is currently reporting, $1,211 as Bitfinex is saying or $1,028 as the Chinese exchanges are claiming? Normally, the arbitrage opportunity created gives us an answer within a day or two, but in this case, there may not be such easy answer as, although free money is up for grabs – some $40 per coin between Bifinex and Coinbase, while there’s a massive $200 opportunity between western and Chinese exchanges – no one is taking it. That suggests money can’t quite move. For Chinese exchanges, we know PBoC has forced them to halt withdrawals,....
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