Bitcoin Forum

China Monitors Booming OTC Bitcoin Market After Shutting Down Exchanges

After shutting down the country’s bitcoin exchanges, the Chinese government is monitoring the booming cryptocurrency over-the-counter (OTC) market. A recent government report shows that 680 million yuan, approximately $103 million, were traded in the last two weeks of October on the top three international OTC trading platforms.

Chinese Government’s Analysis of Bitcoin OTC Trading

Ever since the Chinese government demanded in September that bitcoin exchanges in the country shut down, China’s on-exchange bitcoin trading volume has all but disappeared. Concurrently, yuan trading volumes on OTC platforms have significantly increased.

The National Committee of Experts on Internet Financial Security Technology published a report last week on the status of the Chinese OTC bitcoin market. The committee was formally established in August of last year under the guidance of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. The committee “monitored recent bitcoin off-balance-sheet transactions through the National Internet Financial Risk Analysis Technology Platform” settled in CNY to produce the report.

There are two types of cryptocurrency trading – intraday and OTC, the report began. “OTC usually has no fixed place, prescribed membership, and strict rules and regulations; mainly the one-on-one transactions are conducted by the counterparties through private negotiations.”

In addition to P2P trading such as on Localbitcoins, Chinese citizens also conducted transactions in-person or using live chat tools such as QQ, Wechat, Telegram, and Slack. “A wide range of payment methods, including bank transfer, cash remittance, third-party payment, [and] gift cards” were used, the report stated, adding that:

"Alipay, Wechat and bank transfer are the main payment methods for OTC BTC-CNY transactions."

Read more: https://news.bitcoin.com/china-monitors-booming-otc-bitcoin-market-shutting-exchanges/

I'm interested to know whether the Chinese government is quite enough with the results of the imposed bans and restrictions on the crypto currency at home in the country and how do they assess the effectiveness of such bans themselves? Whether the country's economy is winning from this, or vice versa, the economy is falling. Dry statements, figures are not very interesting. After all, China should already have some kind of review of these results.

Bitcoin users are creative enough to outplay the government restrictions, humans are good on that. I’m not sure if what will be the next move of the Chinese government about it, ignoring it or criminalise the use of OTC and its way. This will be not good to its citizens itself, retracting the order of closing exchanges and put it back on is the best options they can do.

@Argoo I think banning ICO is right enough but closing bitcoin exchanges is not effective as Op or the article said bitcoiners resulted in OTC (over the counter) transactions it’s like a back door transactions. Bitcoin is not ban in China by the way.

I don't know what they want from us to react, like the actions they did on banning cryptocurrency exchanges did a lot of damage on Bitcoin's price but it recovered, are they trying to put up another show?. I doubt china's action towards Bitcoin, they are just creating another show to create FUD and to manipulate bitcoin prices again.

Next (and probably only) step is to prohibit any kind of service from having anything to do with crypto in its entirety. It would mean that even services purely focusing on OTC, or any other similar platform to LocalBitcoins, would have to shut down. I personally don't see this going anywhere, because as you said, people will always find a way to buy themselves into Bitcoin. But then again, it's China that we're talking about, so if they think banning crypto entirely is a viable option, they would certainly do so. It would also mean that the mining aspect there is also at risk, in case of a total ban. I expect anything from an insanely paranoid government such as China, so we'll see how this will play out.

If China actually outlaws OTC trading, then a lot of people might take a step backwards. Even if the law is unimplementable, a lot of people would like to stay on the right side of the law. Bitcoin demand in China would plummet.