Bitcoin Forum

My own theory about what happens in China is below - it shows why I believe there will be further announcements and significant ones - but actually this poll is not about this theory - just about next important announcement what ever it is about.

It looks very likely that the Chinese authorities will do everything to stop money outflows. Their first announcement about this a few months ago was about stopping bitcoins from moving outside of the country - this was not believed here - because it seemed impossible to enforce. Later in January we have had announcement about PBOC examining the exchanges, and then requiring them to stop leveraged trading, introduce trading fees stop artificially inflating volumes and in general enforcing more strictly any other relevant law. My interpretation of this move is that it was mostly about gathering information - the fake volumes were muddying the image. Then this week they announced that there will be new AML rules (or check or whatever) and most exchanges temporarily stopped withdrawals before the new AML rules are established.

This is pure speculation - but what I believe will be next is that PBOC will announce something like 'registered wallets' and all BTC transfers from a registered wallet will be allowed only into another registered wallet (moving BTC from unregistered wallet into a registered one will also be possible). The registered wallets will be hosted to enforce this - but it is quite easy for the authorities to watch for infractions on the blockchain - so I think many companies will be allowed to host registered wallets. The exchanges of course will only allow withdrawals to registered wallets. This way the goal announced many months ago of stopping BTC from moving abroad will be reached. In practice BTCs in the registered wallets will be something very different from 'real' BTCs - but formally it will only be about enforcing the capital controls.
The next thing will be controlling the miners. All mining businesses will be vulnerable - but it will be much harder to enforce the rules on people mining on their private machines, I guess the measures here will depend on how tightly they need to control it, how big outflows it generates.

Mining's the really interesting one. As far as I can tell they've made little or no noise about miners. I assume they're all nice and easy to track down as well.

It's conceivable that BTC might become fully custodial in China for non miners who go anywhere near an exchange. It's not as if you can spend it anywhere anyway. In 2013/14 they stipulated that it was only for playing markets with. That being the case they may as well not let them leave the market at all.

That sounds extremely plausible. If they start controlling miners then that ETF will be dead in the water. I wonder if the PBOC will make their move before the SEC has to make their announcement about the ETF?

A lot of people seem to be missing the point. The recent PBOC activity isn't about Bitcoin.

It's about money laundering and the outflow of capital from their country. They have strict limits on foreign exchange for individuals.

They just want to make it more difficult than simply depositing yuan in an exchange, buying large amounts of bitcoins, and then withdrawing them to a foreign exchange and converting them to USD, EUR, etc.

Can you blame them?

I don't quite get it - are you agreeing with my analysis or disagreeing? On the surface it looks like you mean me when you write people are missing the point - then you state exactly where my theory starts - PBOC wants to stop money outflows - and to do that they need to stop BTC outflows, because BTC is money. Then I present a speculation how they could do that.

I'm basically agreeing with you.

It's just that some people seem to think there's an anti-Bitcoin aspect to the PBOC's actions. Some have even gone so far as suggesting that they're trying to manipulate the price. Others have talked about shutting down smaller exchanges, miners, and even retailers who accept Bitcoin. These are the people I'm referring to.

I agree with your basic analysis of the PBOC's moves to date. What they've done so far has gone a long way to AML/KYC identification.

As for the speculative part, I find your idea of registered wallets interesting but actual implementation could be difficult. They seem to welcome Bitcoin production and domestic use. Registered wallets might impede that if they're too tightly controlled.

Obviously, owner identity of every registered wallet could be used when tracking coins on the blockchain that end up in foreign exchanges, but coins can be tumbled before going to those exchanges. As long as they keep a tight rein on the identities of exchange users, they probably don't need the bureacratic nightmare of registered wallets. The exchanges' wallets would serve as registered wallets.

I don't think they'll go after miners. They represent domestic product, which although relatively small, still helps their country. Besides, miners don't represent that large of a threat of capital outflow nor money laundering. The majority of bitcoins have already been mined.

Just my opinion, of course.
_____

As for your poll, I voted "later this week". They aren't done yet. There are still lots of smaller exchanges to be brought onside and lots of planning to be done. It might take them a while to figure out how to handle this.

If China will like to stop capital outflow thay will launch chinise facta,there nothing to be worry about chnise legisation,at least there is giant economy what see bitcon power and thay want to make some order
In Europe is only blah blah taking and taxing incomes from bitcoin,

it doesn't matter when and what they announce, as far as speculation about bitcoin (this board) is concerned.

what matters is the reaction of the community to that announcement. i assure you even if China bans bitcoin and closes down all exchanges and most mining operations and people don't pay attention to it, price wouldn't change.
but what happens in reality is that China tries to regulate a business that is working with billions of dollar worth of their fiat and have not been operating according to the fiat rules, and people all around the world panic sell with no reason.

Im expecting that they will spread new announcement as soon as the bitcoin's price surge up to $1000+. We actually hit $1000+ this time. So expect they announce something against bitcoin(A.K.A FUD) that will cause massive panic to influence the price of bitcoin anytime soon. They're very obvious.

Has the investigation into BTCC and other Chinese miners/traders come to a conclusion yet? The "punishment" that they receive will be a decent indicator of how far the Chinese authorities will tolerate bitcoin. They'll probably want to wrap it up fairly soon as these are otherwise productive Chinese companies. I have a feeling they will tolerate the mining side of operations but require some heavy identity verification in order to trade.

I think that Chinese government just wants to grab some cheap Bitcoins for themselves. AS BTC is approaching parity with gold many countries will buy it secretly without us knowing about it. It is pure speculation of course but it is possible that governments are investing in BTC. In regard to registered BTC wallets, yes I think that it is possible. Implementing this method they can control all the transfers in China and the outflow of money. But what is important, PBOC actions have less and less impact on Bitcoin price globally.  

i hate to say it but i dont think any government anywhere is buying bitcoin. A few have probably gained some by seizing for example usa but they get sold. If governments thought bitcoin would ever amount to anything then price would be much higher sue to the volumes they would be buying. PBOC s only concern is CNY escaping from the country.

withdraw yuan from china exchanger still suspend one month
so new announcemen PBOC, about china exchanger regulation wait to one month, or march can new annoucement

Yes, I should agree that your assumption is reasonable as Bitcoin marketcap is tiny and huge sums of money will pump it to the moon very quickly. But still it is not a proof that governments are not investing at all not only in monetary terms. In my opinion Chinese governement is concerned not only about CNY outflow but also about the rising price of BTC. They are trying to influence it by announcements of PBOC. As you know, China has a huge depository of gold, so Bitcoin beating the price of gold is not what they want to see. However, I'm not concerned about PBOC statements as they have less efect on BTC price but I'm concerned about the inside speculation. It is not difficult to drive BTC price up with serious amount of money. Probably some sharks are playing this game and we will see another dump after BTC approaches the levels of 1200 USD. If not, the support level will be around 1165 USD.  

They didn't supend the yuan withdraw only bitcoins (they could withdraw yuans to china bank accounts, the problem was that bitcoin could be taken off the country). Also the one month period isn't a rule from Bank of China, its something that can be reduced, if exchanges are ready to follow the new rules.

Im looking forward to it. This has become a 1 on 1 fight between bitcoin and the PBOC, and bitcoin is winning. The PBOC punches are becoming increasingly weaker, bitcoin stands up stronger everytime it gets a beating, soon their movements will be ineffective. The more they attack bitcoin, the stronger it will keep becoming, that is why I can't wait for them to come up with more, it will keep solidifying the $1000 bitcoin floor.

That largely depends on what they (exchanges) are going to do with the coins

Obviously, if fiat withdrawals are allowed, folks will inevitably start selling their bitcoins for the Yuan and then withdraw the latter. And here's the crux of the matter, namely, what will happen to these bitcoins and who will be holding them? If neither Bitcoin deposits nor Bitcoin withdrawals are allowed (nor other cryptocurrencies), this will inexorably cause the price to collapse there (while elsewhere Bitcoin might be quite stable). Ultimately, the exchanges themselves will buy these coins at almost next to nothing, and they will certainly want to sell them (at least, some part thereof) for real prices

If China is indeed after the AML/kyc issue, they might announce early next week since they also need to reach the smaller exchanges.  But if they are into shorting and accumulate Bitcoin then wait for the announcement after Bitcoin price reach $1,100.  They will short and tell the other Chinese exchange to shutdown Bitcoin withdrawal and ban some other exchanges to make more impact :).  Im just assuming on this lol.

These sort of FUD news from PBOC is not affecting the price right now and it is simply because people are now ignoring the tactics used by them ,even though the price really reflected when the news came out then it started to recover and i liked the recovery part and with the volume of coins in the Japan exchanges are increasing and hope the focus on Chinese exchange will change from now on.