Bitcoin Forum

Chinese experts: bitcoin price has nothing to do with capital controls
The bitcoin price rise on Chinese exchanges is not a result of Chinese capital controls policy, says Bobby Lee, the Founder and CEO of BTCC.
http://www.coinfox.info/news/3628-chinese-exchanges-agree-bitcoin-price-has-nothing-to-do-with-capital-controls

Not so sure I agree 100% with him. I do not think one can just ignore the effect and or say that capital controls had no effect on price. True, there is a larger global awareness and interest in bitcoin but when you combine that with things like capital controls you are bound to get even more people to sit up and take notice of bitcoin as an alternative where there are no capital controls.

So the capital controls, in my opinion, surely had a hand to play in the sharp price rise we saw.

If there were no capital controls, the Chinese would just buy cheaper BTCs from international exchanges. There is no reason why they should buy more expensive bitcoins in Chinese exchanges.

The Chinese government is always concerned about RMB being taken out of China (mostly by corrupt officials) so of course Bobby Lee doesn't want them to focus on Bitcoin being used to do this.

Understand though also that it was the government (unofficially as they made no announcement) that recently allowed RMB to be transferred directly from bank accounts to at least his exchange (that had been banned back in 2013 after the rise to 7K RMB).

So perhaps he is just saying what he thinks the government would want him to say (as I'm sure he doesn't want them to block direct bank transfers again).