Bitcoin Forum

If you search the topic in baidu of the last week's price rise, and you search in Chinese, most posts and reports ascribe it to the recent adoption of bitcoin payment method by a web service of Baidu (jiasule.baidu.com).

For example this report of sina.com (one of the biggest Chinese online news outlet):
http://tech.sina.com.cn/i/2013-10-17/10248825635.shtml

These reports suggests that the adoption by Baidu is a signal that the big vendors are accepting bitccoin - consider the close tie between baidu and central government, that the government may be interested too. It is like saying Microsoft or Facebook started to accept bitcoin. That tapped on the emotion and BTC rose.

I think the big vendors are no way closer to accepting bitcoin in the last week than any weeks before. It is indeed a small change, and signals nothing from big vendors nor the central government at all.

Chinese information technology vendors, including the big ones, in general prefer the studio model. A big company is devided into multiple studios, some companys have 100 studios. They each compete against each other. They compete on revenue and profit, within the embralla of a same company. Each studio find their own ways of making profit, and enjoy freedom of decision as long as they are making money. The mother company acts like a referee, dismissing unprofitable studios and buying out (admitting) small competitors to form new studios; the mother company also act as a protector, backing the studios with tremendous PR and governmental relationship power in case their competitor choose to fight on a different level (which also happens). This fast-proliferating fast-evoluting style isn't very co-ordinated, but it is effective because in general in China our culture emphasize competition, and we like to compete and win and we work the best if competition is physically next door. If instead big vendors are organized like Microsoft to co-operate and create huge products (Windows 7) in 5-year span, the youngsters wouldn't stay on their edge - they need quick confirmation whether they are wining or not - they work very hard but doesn't have much patience. Skipping between studios is frequent, the fast-growing studios get more resource and people.

The recent acceptance of bitcoin is likely a decision of a single stuidio in the embralla of baidu, perhaps trying to beat other studios of the same company. Baidu HQs speaksman said nothing about bitcoin in the whole year. How Baidu HQs treats the move is unkown, and they probably don't have an attitude, for it (bitcoin) is trivial compare to the huge online information market they are already on. News interview suggests this is a decision of an individual studio: "We always try to satisfy the webmasters, so when they want to pay with bitcoin, we accept them". Notice the interviewee said 'webmasters', that's the customers of this studio, not Baidu in whole, and he speaks for his own studio.

Also take notice the customer of this studio (jiasule.baidu.com), the webmasters, happen to be the major group of bitcoin miners in China.

So why such a small piece of news that indicates nothing for sure, stirs up such a rally? More important than the news itself it says Chinese investors are desperately looking for a reason to rally. They perhaps expected bitcoin to be above 1000¥ for a long time, now they only need a slight upward vibrate to rally. And they have a good reason to hope for a rally, for they bought huge amount of mining equipments in anticipation of raise of bitcoin value.

My reading of the event is, that Chinese investors are anticipating a rally for a long time, thus it won't cool down in just a few days. However they are speculating, not having much faith in sustanibility of bitcoin and may be frighten away by small bad news within China. They are less sensitive to western news like silkroad.

In China we have highly centralized political power. The chance Chinese government allows bitcoin on the markets (when it calls their attention) is like the chance U.S. government raise debt in BTC. The big vendors foresee it and shouldn't be interested. Besides we have a monoplay business atomosphere in China (every player are greedy, wants to win and take all), and you don't monoplay bitcoin. I see no reason Baidu being interested to include bitcoin into their development strategy. Small vendors are much more likely to be interested in btc.

(OP is a Chinese citizen in Beijing)

Their shipment of fail will arrive faster than ours does in USA.
Nice concept. ;D

It does look sort of like China was looking for an excuse to rally, but that's how these things go: bubbles attract attention, which attracts many strong hands and many more weak hands...some of whom become strong hands as their position prompts educational interest. In the end the price level is much higher, even after the "burst" (see 2011 and early 2013).

In other words, it looks like sentiment drove Baidu Jiasule to accept bitcoins, rather than their acceptance driving sentiment. The Baidu story isn't what caused China to catch the Bitcoin bug; it's proof that China has caught the Bitcoin bug.

If Chinese government pays attention to bitcoin, it would act the same way they do towards shadow banking: fine those involved in bitcoin yet backed by government, and prosecute the entities without gvernment backing (even execute a few, like the unlucky millionaire Wu Ying last year and Zeng Chengjie this year). The charge will be as usual: illegal fund-raising.

Right now there are two points that needs to be considered on understaind Chinese behaviour:

1. Chinese traders speculate. Few believed in a non-governmental currency taking root, as few believed anything significant yet non-governmental can take root. This translate to a huge bear market when Chinese government acts.

2. The atomsphere in China is like the roaring twenties which I read from books. Everyone feels like they are ready to make a big fortune. This can translates to potential huge bulls.

My two cents.

I feel it is still years away until Chinese government taking action on bitcoin. A centralized power does only a handful of things at a time, and their hands are full in Xi's first 2 year's reign. (Xi is a surname, not roman number 11)

"Roaring 20's...huge rallies...regulation years away"

That's what I like to hear.

Makes sense. But from my view here in the West, China is very eager to appear mainstream especially when it comes to finance and capitalism. Therefore, if Bitcoin were to get mainstream acceptance in Europe and the US, I could see a world where China didn't try to ban bitcoin. Bitcoin isn't going to threaten a communist Chinese government at anytime in the future anyway.

More or less agreed. However if bitcoin present challange to authority (not to actual fiscal power, but to the image of authority, like that "Chinese government can maintain the stability of our own currency"), they treat it differently.

It seems like Chinese citizens are desperate to get their money into some sort of investment. When the government allowed people to invest in a second home it became such a huge craze of investment that they now have empty cities of "second homes" built purely for investment.

Whether it is Baidu or anything that gets the word to Chinese people with money to invest, if Bitcoin becomes even a sliver of the craze of other investments it will skyrocket the price.


But yes, it will be a bubble. They are in a housing bubble right now and if the US defaults on its loans, China will be hit. So a huge Chinese investment in Bitcoin will not be a solid foundation.

Just speaking as an American observer, one thing that pre-disposes some Chinese citizens to Bitcoin is that millions were already involved in Q Coin, so the idea of digital cash isn't as foreign to them as it is to many Americans. P2P networks in all forms are also familiar territory to a lot of net users in China so the idea of P2P money probably has a little wider acceptance than it would here in the US. In comparison to the rest of the world, most Americans are stodgy and conservative in matters relating to currency. Overall, Bitcoin will probably do better in China than it has here in the US.

A practical matter would also be that if the Chinese government sees Bitcoin as a threat to Western banking (Western banks have admitted as much), then Bitcoin could be seen as a tool to increase their influence if it can undermine the European Central Bank's and the Federal Reserve's influence. But I do agree with you that if your government (or mine) felt more threatened by Bitcoin, they probably would come down on it hard.

IMHO, at this relatively early stage anything that gets the word out is good.  The more people hear about this bitcoin thing, the more people will actually give it a try and tell their friends and family.  The network effect is very powerful, more powerful than any one business and any one country.

Also mind that Q-coin has a different position than Bitcoin. As said, in China (people think that) nothing significant can take root without being part of the government. This holds true with Q-coin. The company behind Q-coin doesn't hesitate to follow governmental scutiny - other big players baidu, sina all show obiendiance to the central governmental the same way, and are allowed to live. The game that is called reguation in the west is equivilent to the game of obiendiance here. So it is not the question whether bitcoin can be regulated, but whether bitcoin can obey. Bitcoin trading can be regulated but bitcoin itself bends to no one - which begets the question whether or not it will be allowed to live.

On the other hand, if Bitcoin becomes so significant that the government has to make a decision, and they decided to let it live, the acceptance of bitcoin will have no consumer psychological barrier, because, as you said, we are pretty familiar with virtual currencies.

On a side note of P2P: a centralized government can only do a handful of things at a time. The fight to copyright protection is dismissed as tirival. it is non trivial in the U.S. because corporates takes root in the government, where here is the opposite, the government take root in companies. In the U.S. big companies plant their people in the government, here the government plant people in the company's board (e.g. through Party Committee which exists within most named vendors). Besides, P2P video exchange, popular in china perhaps more than any other country, happens without much user's awareness. It is not that people are more willing to share, but that the commercialized P2P software does P2P in the background and the companies operating this ain't worried of being sued.

I really can't for the life of me understand why anyone who didn't believe in the viability of bitcoin would spend any great amount of time reading and posting on this forum.

This is all really interesting. Thanks for posting.

Meh, if it helped boost the btc price I'm happy.

Thanks, it's good to hear your take on it, it's often pretty hard to get a read on what influences perception and behaviour in China.

:)

Reminds me of American media reporting on Chinese media reporting on The Onion (Satirical Newspaper) declaring Kim Jong Un the sexiest man in the world (http://www.newstatesman.com/business/2012/11/china-peoples-daily-republishes-onion-article-naming-kim-jong-un-sexiest-man-alive).

Or the "Bitcoin ATM Coming to Cyprus in Two Weeks ®™" story.

Something was clearly lost in translation, somewhere on the way from http://jiasule.baidu.com/news/525cd5aabf9efd699f800e7e to http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=BIDU

Thanks for speaking up! :)

Yes, it's wonderful to hear a knowledgable Chinese person discussing Chinese political issues. Many foreigners (rightly?) regard China as a brutal totalitarian state, so the things he has posted will come as little or no surprise to many of us.

Thanks for the Chinese perspective.

Paraphrasing but there was one part I found interesting.. American companies place people in government whereas in china the government places people in companies.

Merger of state and private sector in both cases, or in other words Fascism.

That's exactly what I was thinking: fascism by inverted routes. What's the difference between being crushed by a left jackboot and being crushed by a right jackboot? :o

Chinese speculators waiting for a thing to spark a rally makes a lot of sense. They were the ones who had the first ASIC miners. So they must have stockpiled a lot of BTC waiting to sell at high prices. The exchanges help them with 0% fee for some fake volume et voilá a new bubble is born. Another famous chinese pump and dump strategy. Be warned ladies.

Great, because if you hadn't said that, I would have totally assumed you were talking about the roman numeral 11, and gotten really confused  ;)



That's the best way to figure out who the shills are.



This is important, because bitcoin is a bigger threat to a weakening fiat currency than to a strengthening one. China is still a long ways to go before their monetary and fiscal policy isn't as loose as a 13 year old Thai prostitute's vagina, but they are "tightening" and the U.S. is still "loosening." China's CB is also buying massive quantities of gold, and they encourage their citizens to purchase gold. So in some ways, Bitcoin is less of a threat to them and more of a threat to the dollar. They may not mind it so much since it may hurt their "enemy" more than it hurts them.

The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

Thank you for the interesting analysis.

This is why i've said the Western ppl has no clue about Chinese Goverment and culture.
You just proved my statement

+1. My thinking exactly.

This can develop to a WIN-WIN-WIN situation:

1. Chinese government, which is already flooded with US toilet papers and recently made angry voice over the debt ceiling and threat of default, sees promoting Bitcoin as a way to strengthen their national wealth and undermine dollar hegemony.

2. US dollar, while may suffer short to mid term due to BTC competition, can be a beneficiary in the long term because this forces the US government to clean up their act and rein in the printing press. Besides, I really don't see US government has the constitution power to ban a network protocol, if so, the founding fathers would be rolling in their graves.

3. The people, of course, get to use people's money.

This may be a little bit over-optimistic but definitely a possibility.

OP i rarely see a Chinese member that can make such honest statement. Most Chinese on the interweb always talk fantasy about China which in turn gives all the Western ppl a delusion of China becoming like a Western Capitalist country. I also blame stupid mainstream media,.... frankly they're all owned by big corporations which all have benefits from working with China.

Another fantasy talk from the Western about China .... ::)

"encourage their citizen to purchase gold? "

LOL do you even know wtf you're talking about? Go live in China and try to buy gold freely like you do in US.... then come back here and talk like you know shit

@zhangweiwu:  Thanks for writing.

Nemesis, why don't you correct the statements rather than simply calling "false" "incorrect" "stupid". Are you even from China?

This is all rather interesting.

Yeah, it's all a giant conspiracy, illusion. 

https://www.google.com/search?q=chinese+buy+gold&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X (https://www.google.com/search?q=chinese+buy+gold&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X)

Very interesting to read how chinese think.

Shocked by billionaires being executed :(

Thx so much for sharing OP!

Thank you for your completely useless, incorrect refutation. You imply that anecdotal evidence is more important than legitimate data. Do some actual research on that claim before you make yourself out to be an idiot... I think a google search was recommended by another poster  ;)

EDIT: Not to mention that buying and holding gold as savings is actually a culturally accepted practice throughout the east, but in the west, it is only "crazy people" who stack. Sounds like you're the one living in a fantasy world... ;D ;D ;D

Some questions:

I read that in 2007, the government of China limited Q-coin purchases to 120 Q-coins per month for each person. Is that limit still enforced?

Bitcoin provides a way to convert yuan to Bitcoins to dollars or euros or yen, bypassing the exchange controls of the State Administration of Foreign Exchange. Once someone has bought Bitcoins, there is no way to prevent them from converting them to another currency outside China. Will the People's Bank of China do something to stop that? Or is Bitcoin too small to matter? 

@zhangweiwu:  Thanks for informative post, greatly appreciated.

Great post. It is a clear, concise and well-formulated summary that made sense of my garbled understanding of China, pieced together from bits an pieces of information from half-way around the world.

I'm not going to discuss the obvious geopolitical benefits of adopting Bitcoin - because in some sense they apply to very many other countries.

One thing I'm wondering about though is more on-topic: if the Chinese government got obedience from most Bitcoin users in China, could that qualify for the obedience-system?

This will be lose for both Chineze and US governments. They will lose their important source of income: the printing press. And their banks will lose a lot of customers (why keep money in bank if bitcoin's % is better). So it's in interest of both governments to squash BTC. Our hope is that instead of jointly killing BTC they will use it to fight each other. Then they will lose and we will win.

The old collusion/prisoner's dilemma situation, right there.

Good morning. I am surprised to see so many replies overnight.

Before answering please take a look at the new price now, Chinese trader's price is close to price of MtGox, very unusual (China used to be big export country so the price of bitcoins was often the cheapest of all global markets).

People always see what they wish to see. I also read Chinese bitcoin forums, and there is a recent poster, awaring baidu cannot stir up such a rally by the event itself, attribute the rally to that "also in the U.S. after silkroad traders feel positive because crime is purged from bitcoin".

Today's price is rising as usual, and mind the sharp raise of all Chinese exchang's price at GMT 00:00, which is local time 8 in the morning. The excitement yesterday must have made some birds rise early. Please mind that it is definitely not solid, Chinese traders are not confident - you have to decide for your own if there will be a straight bull market as confidence gets confirmed and grow, or an early rush sell. I myself betted the former and am exposed to the risk of latter, because it is too risky to be prudent: the confidence may get past to the west and change the mood globally.


Exactly my take on the things.


How do you even come to that point? This is completely mind-bogging! The government sees tools as means to control people, and obedience as Chinese be, do you think we love to obey? That we have the slightest idea to adore our government? People has to be chained to stay obedient! In my personal opinion, under this pressure people is more likely to develop to scoundrels than docile, begetting more chains.


Answer your first question: I don't even bother to look up, one person 120 Q-coin per month is unbelievable nowadays. Such a limitation would serves better the purpose to test the chain - how willing a company complies with governmental rules that is against its own interest. In reality QQ makes money on entertaining people, which is never bad for a centralized power.

And your second question: I think bitcoin is too small to matter now. Unlike in the U.S. where banks own the government (at least I heard so) here government owns the bank. It look like the kind of issue that the government will take direct action with its prosecutors and police, not through policies in the People's Bank of China. (FYI In China the person prosecuted is always "found" guilty.)


Zeng was not that stupid to challange his government; he didn't. Government is made of people; the official he believe that backs him is removed from high position and his pervious investment stuck in the goverment. He probably tried to get the money back, and was likely killed for that reason. Before you assume him a tough guy, know that he may be well docile with the previous official, just got caught a unmerciful disaster. A good lesson for power strugglers. Also keep in mind that a leader of a province in China has as many man under his reign as an emperor in Europ, not to be trifled with.


So you saw for yourself the roaring 20s franticness.


Can you back that? I also suspected they have fake volume with their 0% fee for a while, but it may even be true.


This is unrealistic. I took it as a typical U.S. idea. Why Chinese government think much of U.S. when it comes to bitcoin? More straight question: why Chinese government should take it a priority to fight the U.S.? Perhaps the people in the U.S. think they are really important and we are here everyday figuring how to fight the U.S. The chief enemy of Chinese government is, frankly, Chinese people. So is the second and third enemy. U.S. lines up the fifth enemy of Chinese government. You are not that important in this decision making.

China blocks western news outlet and facebook; don't have any idea China is doing this to fight U.S., they do it to fight us the people.

I think the west is starting to think that the Chinese speculators have gone totally mad now. :P Bitstamp and Gox want to take a little rest and consolidate and retrace a bit to test and build support, but the Chinese bulls are just relentless and keep on going almost without pause. It's a lot of fun to see all the enthusiasm there, but we're getting into dangerous territory now by going up this fast. One small thing can trigger a huge correction and since there has almost been no time to build any meaningful support the fall will be quite deep. We've been through this before, so people here are still wary of this. I think this is why Gox and Bitstamp have now become more hesitant to follow China, before it was all fun and good but now things start to become a little scary even for them. Please tell the Chinese speculators to take it a little easy on the greed or they might be shooting themselves in the foot later. ;)

hehe, yeah, China is CRAZY. making this bubble happen way too fast. i hardly slept last night, probably no sleep tonight..... watching for them dumps.

Just download bitcoinium app. Set price alarm with hardcore mode on, make sure you dont have any battery savers on your phone..

Wala, chose your trigger points and its sure to wake you if something happens :)

I've gotten quite a few trades to it. And quite a few lost because battery saver stopped it from updating lmao.

My biggest fear, other than the volume being fake, is that this is just a bunch of high roller chinese gamblers (the Chinese love gambling) and they will all dump at once at the slightest sign of a reversal, and any whale (Chinese or otherwise) that decides to capitulate will initiate a massive crash.

really good to have this perspective now. thank you, OP. i'm not sure how to feel now!

Would be nice to see double or even single digits again.

yeah, i really dont have enough coins for this yet  :-\

That's because westerners (me included) usually struggle and fail to understand China, and usually you fear what you don't understand.
It's quite a widespread sentiment to fear that China wants to conquer the whole world, hence people react to that.
(I'm not saying this makes any sense, mind, I'm just trying to explain why many people think that China thinks we are enemies)

"important source of income" via printing press is additive drug to the governments, losing this kind of income is not a bad thing. 

The banking sectors are becoming obsolete and parasitic, a cleansing process is long overdue.

For governments, Bitcoin is like bitter pills, good to your health, but hard to swallow.

 I am Interested about following

http://www.celent.com/system/files/p2pinchina.gif

https://doc.research-and-analytics.csfb.com/docView?language=ENG&source=emfromsendlink&format=PDF&document_id=1010517251&extdocid=1010517251_1_eng_pdf&serialid=VLRQ4TgNxWzk%2FTvHinuua6Xm4ULQYuKKG73B%2FntsRZo%3D

I heard from some friend who was at conference in sz last week (China Internet financial forum). sentiment on p2P finance is optimistic , and some speakers had  nice words to say about bitcoin

It seems we are in different paradigms. In your paradigm, the state is people's servant. In mine, the state is people's parasite. You beleive that state strives to benefit us. In mine, it doesn't care about us and does good things only when forced to it.

Yes, that's the question: who are the Chinese behind this rally? Are they gamblers or investors? I believe they are not gamblers only: a lot of Chinese are desperate in search of place to invest.

So the chinese government will want to ban bitcoin when it is larger, since it cannot bend the knee.

How?

If I were to be owner of (let's say apple iTunes store):

Buy 15 000BTC @ 100$

Press release about accepting bitcoin in 3-10 days

LIFTOFF!

sell 15 000BTC @ 200$

Press release about change of heart, no bitcoin accepting in near future, sorry

BTW, do you have a bitcoin address we can tip to?

Cheers,
Rusty.

Oh yes I forgot that. Thank you! I just added it to my signature.

1H8zTiwu7cLFzoVaUkUSGZhEgE8RKxyQbZ

I answered this before, and you haven't read it. Just search for keyword "Zeng" in this thread. Here is more information: among the 7 Chinese exchange service providers that I am monitoring, only btcchina published a name and an address on their website, all others anonymous. All exchange providers do not accept direct bank transfer (nor domestic nor international) and only accept money through virtual accounts on alipay/tenpay (like paypal in China) because it is easier to fake personal information on these virtual accounts. Now you realize being anonymous is bad for running exchange service business - how do you entrust others to put money on your trading account? So why do they still choose to be anonymous? Because they want to keep their body alive, even a billionaire like Zeng cannot save his life.

In other words, those who operate btcchina is betting their lives or runnning incognito without our awareness. They are either the bravest or they are the biggest fraud. If they used real names, they still have a good chance to keep their body (not company) alive, as they are betting Central Government being more cautious on killing, while provincial government less, and bitcoin is going to be a central government issue. But nevertheless they are betting their lives. And I am not yet sure if btcchina people deserve a lot of respect, they could be just too greedy than too bold (their 0% trade fee policy and higher volume than MtGox fits the picture of the ubiquitous winner-take-all ambition in China, a characteristic of our time).

Where is the line?

The behaviour of a gambler and a desperate investor is the same, if they don't have faith in what they are investing in.

For your information, in some areas of Beijing the rent-to-purchase ratio of real estate is already at the level of 1000:1 (norm is 200:1), that is much beyond when Japan had their real estate bubble burst. And real investors, investors betting the happiness of the rest of his life and his family's, are still pouring money into Beijing real estate purchase. Are they investors or gamblers? Just this morning I read a post someone saying he put his life's saving into bitcoin and wishing it to triple, so that he can cash out and buy real estate in Beijing and thus move to live in Beijing. There are much less logic behind investment, only sentiment matters.

I am stil betting this madness can go on a few days - after that, it depends on the sentiment.

I see walls building up. And makes me feel we'll never go beyond 205.5.

I am afraid I have to disagree with you on two things:
1) BTCChina accepts direct bank transfer.
2) Running an bitcoin exchange is different than running a stock exchange or opening a virtual IPO. It's just a platform for people to buy/sell a commodity (BTC is not treated as currency yet in China). So I don't think they are risking their life.  They may be force closed and fined, or even charged for tax, license issues, but definitely not terminated as long as they do not just flee with all traders' money.
I like your analysis, but please don't exaggerate and keep objective.  

interesting!! :)

do you mean monthly rent being 200 times more than value of property?

Well we only got to 205.5 less than 24 hours ago, kind of early to be saying it will never go through. Getting over 200 was the big deal, now things are likely consolidating, a little pause to all this would be just fine.  :)

EDIT: LOL exactly ten minutes later we just hit 207.47.  :P ;D

They may be taxes & fined  if its a small operation, but if Bitcoin grows enough they could potentially face more problems. Especially when you consider the fact that the potential that they will flee with all the trader's money increase's with its purchasing power.

Are you Chinese? Are you in the best position to talk of objectivity? I'm not, and I'm not going to make a rash judgment and assume what OP is saying is unlikely. But your idea of punishment under the Chinese system definitely sounds like the perspective of a westerner. There are many executions in China for what are white collar crimes in the west. Zeng Chengjie (http://world.time.com/2013/07/17/crackdowns-and-executions-provoke-shock-and-outrage-in-chinas-business-community/) was executed 2 years ago for fraudulent fundraising and was executed before his family was notified. They maintain his innocence. People are illegally imprisoned all the time. Talk of law and lawyers means nothing when they will disappear you and imprison your lawyers if need be. As of a couple years ago, people could be executed for petty crimes (http://factsanddetails.com/china.php?itemid=298) like drunk driving and bicycle thievery. And in China, there is a history of executions (including public executions) as a warning/deterrent.

"Killing a chicken to scare the monkeys"

The kicker is that we know so little about executions in China because data about them are treated as state secrets.

Factors that work in favour of bitcoin in regards to the Chinese market:

- Chinese lose money in banks through inflation, so they're always looking for something to invest in to protect wealth.  Recently its been property, but bitcoin also has the advantage of being easily movable outside of the country.

- Some major cities (Shanghai for example) have put limits on the number of properties that can be bought.  People with savings will be looking for something else to dump money into.  Bitcoin has the distinct advantage of not requiring any storage space and also being an easy place to hide wealth.


Factors that work against:

- Because many Chinese are looking for anything to put their money into they're prone to fads and bursting bubbles.  See the China Garlic Bubble of 2010 for example.  If bitcoin's price or popularity starts to deflate you will see a very rapid rush for the exits.

- If bitcoin is seen as becoming a threat by the central government there could be a very swift and severe crackdown on exchanges.  Despite stereotypes China is a pretty open society with citizens enjoying a lot of freedom, but anything that may cause harm to the government is harshly dealt with.


Some of my relatives are Chinese and own investment properties there.  They keep the properties empty as a 'used' apartment is seen to be worth less, unlike in my home country where investors try to cram in a renter even at a loss to claim the tax concession.

Of course. I could be "over-optimistic", that's what I said  :D

It seems like in any state like china, with a rapidly growing economy but also with inflation, Bitcoin would be a huge boon.

Since people are accumulating wealth, rather than spending it, they need a savings vehicle, but inflation is destroying those savings. Also, they have a lot of income, so they don't necessarily need for the savings to be very liquid. Finally, the government is known to confiscate wealth. Bitcoin is the natural answer.

You are right on this, an experiment shows they accept direct transfer to specific person (not company). It's a mistake of my notes, and on this they are exceptional.


If they intend to flee with all trader's money is a subject matter to be decided (not to be mooted). In Zeng Chengjie's case, the company was seized by government, which contain fund from a very large group of people, and most asset was sold by the government in a hurry at low price, then, they accused the company owner for not being able to pay the fund (of course, as they are sold cheap), and execution was fast. So it was not Zeng intend illegal thing for the money, but a decision was made that he must intend so.

From your langauge I assume you are aware things here enought to tell provincial government act differently than a central government. It is harder for central government to direct such a show as in Zeng's case and "find" a money fraud which doesn't exist. So yes, they are not "risking" their lives if the thing is handled by central government. But although central government doesn't often act ruthles childishly, like Zheng Chenjie's case, it nevertheless is ruthless when it consider authority is in danger and an example has to be made, like the other case with another Mr Zeng (Zeng Junjie), so if btcchina people are in real danger depends on two factors, 1: if the case is a central government issue and 2) if the case evolved that needs to be taken as a challane of national authority (e.g. fiscal). I summarized these two factors as "nevertheless they are risking their lifes" because I do think so.

Trolls gotta troll.

People defend for Zeng because of two things:
1) The so called 'fraud' was supported by the government then, and he was caught after the government leader was changed and his assert was grabbed by the government without giving a chance for him to pay back the investors.
2) Just after the death penalty was approved, the execution was done quickly before notifying his family.
They are not saying Zeng is innocent and the death penalty is completely unfair.

There're also two things to clarify:
1) He indeed caused people to lose billions of CNY, and was not innocent at all.
2) His death penalty was debated for years online and finally approved by the Supreme Court, and his daughter knew that before he was executed. She just did not get notified the exact day of the execution and did not get her chance to see his father for the last chance. It was not a secret execution imagined by many westerners.

Let's come back to the topic. If BTCChina suddenly disappears with billions of CNY from the traders, then yes, they deserve death penalty. If they allow people to launder millions of illegal income or help people to transfer millions of CNY to overseas (to avoid this, BTCChina has daily BTC withdraw limit of 10BTC for unverified users), they maybe jailed for many years. But if they are forced to close by the government just because BTC trading is not supported, they will at most be charged on taxing and license issues.

Where I live, if you rent 1000 months, you spend enough to buy the house. The news report says a figure much lower than 1000, and they are sensored. So either I live in a very special area of Beijing (could be, because it is greener here and we have elders in the community -- the less valued locations are full of youngsters), or the newspapers are lying. I didn't do a full study of everywhere in Beijing.

You surly studied a lot on the facts, so much so that you may even been to China or studies China, but your thinking is western. You are thinking on the line that one event leads to another, with a set of rule, not on the line that how leaders will consider the issue. In fact you talk as if the leaders ain't present in the picture.

The essence is: It's people making decision on people's fate. You are thinking whether someone did something wrong. IMHO this is a typical western idea. Please keep talking like that, that helps China be more aware of your way of thinking which would helps us in the end. But things happens in China is thus colored in your view. Wise investors avoids this coloring. You can analyses things with this coloring, but how do you predict things with this coloring?

Let's look at Mr Zeng's case again and see the decision making process. Is he prosecuted because he is not innocent? I took it trivial and I didn't study if he is innocent; there are other frauds going on unpunished. This morning on my way to breakfast my breakfast shop is there no longer, 50 police man lines up blocking the way as the building being torn down. (It is true and it is exactly 2 hours ago, location is east to Xi'ErQi subway station, I was too cowardy to take a picture.) They call it removal of illegal building, but there is another one just next to it untouched. Everybody are illegal, who decided which one to survive? Is it by rule or by the thinking of someone powerful? 吸储 (accept saving from public) is a serious crime (for its potential of public rally), and I am a customer of exactly one of such 'illegal' business which just got an award from local government. Will this company no longer be tomorrow? Will the wheel of fate turn and their leader be in jail soon? Perhaps, that's why they offer 15% yearly return (some do 30% or more). If they collapse I will accept my lose, it is not because it is illegal, but that it is chosen for sacrifice.

In my post I never metiond Zeng is innocent. He sacrified in a power struggle; his innocence or lack of it is irrelevent. Truth is, somebody want somebody dead and he managed it. Perhaps the victim displeased a some powerful leader, or he needs to be out of a bigger picture. Whoever did it has the authority (not lawful authority) to sell the asset of the company and frame him, and even if the central government knows this leader crossed the line by causing public rally (not by being ruthless), the central government cannot punish the leader on the spot, fearing it be taken as a success of defense by the people. The wise memebers in the centrol government may even carefullly remove the leader who sacrified Mr Zeng a few years later after the event, but not on the spot, least that authoritive image be maintained.

Look at the recent scrutiny against Starbuck. Is Starbuck being really too expensive? No, the government is looking for a sign of obiedience, like the obeidience they obtained from BMW, apple and western milk vendors. Just sit and watch the event unfold, Starbuck will folllow the order and lower the price. Obey, you have chance to earn back the money later. If you talk about facts, whether or not Starbuck is too expensive or guilty, you are seeing the woods not the forest.

I am from desert area of China. In school days I used to defend myself with a pen kinfe. I fought my way to Beijing and survived, although my citizenship remains provincial I consider myself lucky. My friend briefly jailed for trying to report the event of Q-i-a-n-Y-u-n-h-u-i. Married raising a kid without own house, I actuallly learned my English from reading Shakespeare and Tennyson. I never had a chance to go to an English speaking country, twice I was denied of visa for flight risk, such is how western system of law and personal freedom entrusts me. Why do I mention this? Our world is different. The opulence the west enjoys, we work hard to gain equal footing. From grass root I know survival and I know it is not easy here. Now China talks loudly about justice-by-law, while to us it is just a fasionable new trend, and other trends has flown before, what doesn't change is that you obey whoever can hurt you without being punished - this rule works everywhere. Admittedly China has gone a long way and now that you are likely to stay out of trouble trying to be law-abiding (unlikely really law-abiding, because they outlawed too many), but you are not so sure, especially in the mine-field of public stability issue like 吸储 (accept saving from public). Our Econimist Mao Yushi 茅于轼 is a public figure. He operates microfinancing for rural development 10 years and in an interview he said that he still dare not 吸储 (accept saving from public) which is the key step for his dream of self-sustaining rural development, and who are you to think you are to enjoy a better fate than a well respected audacious figure like him, whom if prosecuted would backfire PR disaster to China government? If, BTCChina is hacked and stolen beyond what they can cover on their own, and crowds gather together to protest for the lose of their family saving, that converts the event from a tax and license problem to a stability problem, they can't be confident about their petty life. If, for another scenario they are caught in the picture of fight-againt-corruption and someone want a number of money laundry to sacrifice, they can't be confident about their petty life. In both senarios I don't even involve government's attitude towards non-fiat currency. And I am speaking of cmmon sense, BTCChina knows it, it just take some courage to speak it frankly.

Do you honestly believe that this is 'right'?

Second, do you honestly believe that the government can't just manipulate it into looking like they allowed people to launder millions of illegal income?

Third, do you believe it is even possible for a business of their nature to NOT have the potential to allow money laundering?

Yes, this rally has no relations to goverment, just big investors from Wenzhou get involved in.

If goverment want to test bitcoin, then the company would be Tencent, not baidu

how does Chinese government feel about bitcoin? this is the big question i'd like to know!  :-\

Could I have a sumary based on your words:

Chinese people use their houses to buy bitcoin, because the money they invest in bitcoin should invest in houses before. ;D

Summary of zhangweiwu's most recent post:

China is a rule of men, not a rule of law.

Be careful,dude, some wumaos are here

Petty.

Somehow that comes as a surprise to some of you here. Keep watching Western mainstream media you hear?


 

Thanks a lot for your detailed reply. Actually I agree with you on that China is not a country following rules. Therefore, the risk of BTCChina is not really the legal risk, but the risk of threatening the central government.

Currently, I think this risk is pretty low. First, BTC is still not well known yet. Second, the daily volume is just millions of CNY. Most importantly, now most investors are happy because of the BTC appreciation.

The risk will be larger if 1) the BTC becomes more mainstream, 2) there's a huge crash of BTC price, or 3) one of the trading platforms may finally be proven as scam and there're a lot of angry investors.

I love western thinking applied to China: China got the highest number of English learner in the world (aguablly also highest number of English speakers in the world), hearing this overtime, China may change, and there is a good chance it is changing towards something better. And it is always good to have more people like you who follows things happening in China. -- Unless you are hired "womao" who sing praise of death panalty, in that case, I have something to say about the very part of death panalty in your words:


Picture this:
1. BTCChina got hacked.
2. People rally, some lost their life's saving, some accuse BTCChina took it in their own pocket.
3. Our government got smart, decide it is easier to pacify the crowd with accused's blood.
4. BTCChina management foresee 3, and decide it is easier to just disappear with billions of CNY from the traders. If die anyway, better die with some wealth, knowing they will be framed anyway and make no attempt to cleanse their reputation.

So do they deserve death panalty?

I think death panalty can be mooted only if justice is garanteed, and it is so hard to garantee it i in the west, least China.

I had read the whole thread. That is how the exchanges are banned. Private use of bitcoin is much harder to discover. What is to prevent bitcoin black market use in China between individuals?

Thank you for your interesting posts.

Excuse my naiveté, but why the Chinese characters for some keywords?

I assumed BitThink knows Chinese, for he knows much, and that he would need keywords to google for back reference. Now think back I am he one who is naive, using Chinese keywords to expose bitcointalk.org to China's sensorship. So I just replaced some with PinYin -- added PinYin to the onces that are not sensitive.

And that's why you are not neither owner of iTunes store, nor in prison.

Don't take me wrong. I'm not praising any death penalty. On the contrary, I'm against death penalty, especially for economical crimes.

That said, if they decide to disappear with all CNY just because some BTCs are hacked, I do think they deserve life imprisonment. If BTC was lost because the site was hacked, the site owner has to take all the responsibility. If any exchange says otherwise, I doubt people will use it.

You should know that China has a large population, over 10 million population, there are 14 city.
There are 3 city 20000000. (does not contain the floating population.)

/grunch

regarding the housing bubble...
Do any of the Chinese ITT know if your government has a contingency plan to
gather up the speculated housing that remains vacant post-crash
and turn them into massive housing projects for the people?

[I said contingency, I'm NOT predicting this will happen...]

/end grunch

Finally some healthy view on the Jiasule topic. Thanks OP!

How is announcing accepting a currency that you own a criminal offense?

Seriously, I doubt anybody accepts Bitcoins that doesn't own any.

Thank you for having tipped me, whoever you are:)

Interesting stuff. Let me know if you want to guest write an article. http://cryptolife.net

While news of Baidu accepting bitcoin payments was sensationalized, it is a strong signal nonetheless.  The operators of BTC China are well known.  One is the brother of a Litecoin author.  The real news driving bitcoin price gains is the 10% premium at which BTC trade on BTC China.  This demonstrates a huge pent-up demand, which is only gradually being expressed in the price. 

I fear that I may never get another shot at sub-$200 BTC.

On the upside, this may pull my mining ops back in the black for another year.

Nailed it.

I was going to post something like this, but then I thought, hey, it's that obvious?

A company like Baidu, posting nothing but a message, showing nothing more than an address.

Now they accept BTC, how? via manual crediting? I'm not saying the news is not authentic, I'm just saying it must be a lot less significant than it sounds like.

But that population is overweight in middle age people, with relatively few children, and most of those children are boys with relatively fewer girls since chinese parents keep killing off future potential mothers, so they can have a son. If you look at china's numbers for 0-15 year old girls who determine a population's future, the population does not seem as large as the overall figures you cite.

Unbelievable. 1000 times month needed to buy the house. So that means a property you can rent for say $500 per month, is valued at $500,000 right?

That means a yearly rental income of $500x12=$6000 for a property valued $500,000, that is a rental return (or dividend) of 1.2% per year.

Or put differently a Price/Earnings ratio (P/E ratio) of 83. And that is an average for real estate in Beijing?

This is a bubble of epic proportions.  ::)

Sell all you can. Prepare for a slump of many decades just like Japan.  

Agree, it's a matter of definition. In a sense, all activity are speculations: we do something now, expecting some (unguaranteed) results in a future. The difference is only how distant is the future. If it weeks, it's speculator/gambler. If it years, it's investor. So if the Chinese behind this rally are mostly gamblers, they will withdraw shortly and after-the bubble-BTC-rate will return to the pre-bubble one. But if they are mostly investors, they'll buy&hold, so the rate will stay high even after the crash.

Anyway, if the rally will continue for another couple of weeks, the West will follow China and then Chinese behaviour won't matter so much: history shows that about half of Westerners hold after the crash and therefore the price after the crash will be about half of bubble peak value.

A dividend of 1.2% per year really isn't that bad, if you have to pay for your own expenses like utilities, repairs & any taxes that come with the land. I wish I could get 1.2% returns by investing in a noninflationary asset like land.

If you take inflation into the account, it will be negative return.

Land doesn't inflate. ~.~ WTF are you talking about.

I'm talking about China. Their 1.2% are before inflation. After inflation it is below zero. They are still investing olny because in bank the interest is even smaller. As for the land, if their flat is in a 20-store building, there is not much land per flat. :)

TL;DR

But I didn't see this anywhere:
https://blockchain.info/address/1NtbQKVFxAPc8mmBoWwRzhg7o3EMCBsxNg

Your estimation is true, but it is not averaged from all Beijing, just the community where I live what I observed. The news paper report ratios much lower. Chinese news report is sensorted, and they could have averaged areas outside of the metro area into it, or just fake data. Anyway, I don't believe in news paper but I also cannot assure that my observation apply to all Beijing. One thing is for sure, that property price is still rising at accelerating rate.


I don't have a property. At this price only the early buyers could have afforded it. But if I have, I probably won't sell it. A housing bubble burst would cause public rally and GDP get hit, and our government do everything to prevent both (according to the latent contracct between the government and people: government maintain GDP growth and people thus keep roaring 20s dream, thus maintain docile), which translate to that they will maintain house price. A very strong centrol power has much more tools at hand to manipulate economy. In the last 3 decades whoever betted economic failure of our government always lose.

True.
Not true. The banks are not lending money now (Oct), they run out of their government-enforced house mortage quota, which is a house price control policy. They buy it with their own money, and the reason they invest is not to earn the dividend, but the faith that the price will roar and their wealth increase. Chinese dream. Roaring Twenties. (my Chinese fellows: Forgive me mention negatives. I know you guys are reading this, 'cause this very discussion is reported back in Chinese online media.)

But land doesn't inflate. I'm assuming when you say price per month rent isn't to buy the home when it was bought, but to buy the house when you are renting it, correct?

BTCchina is licensed by the Government of China.  People who know about doing business in China will know what I am talking about.

well that's good to know.

What are you talking about?

There is no license even remotely related to bitcoin exchange in China. There is no forex business outside of banking system. BTCChina is not licensed other than the regular business license.

they have an ICP

If you look carefully, you'll see what BTCChina has is "ICP Bei (备)", not "ICP Zheng (证)".

ICP Bei is compulsory for all non-commercial websites run by Chinese individual/company, ICP Zheng is for commercial websites.

Technically, it is illegal for BTCChina to make a profit. The government has every reason to shut it down at their will, although I believe it is unlikely to happen any time soon.

It's fun because we just hit $160 again.
Crazy money.

All these Chinese exchanges with 0% fee. The result... A game to shake people down.

Running a BTC exchange is a risky business. So are BTCChina et al a charity? Heck no, they're likely all making lots of money -- the future of BTC be damned.  If an exchange's main business is Fiat in, flip, then Fiat out... It is not an exchange, it is a game... A "pass the bag" gamble.

I hope investors can see the huge information asymmetry with big players they have in this giant game of chicken. The only winners can be the biggest holders already. There is even no pretense of self- regulation in the interest of users.

With 0% fee in a near-100% speculative environment like China, exchanges can only operate fairly if they publish more data --- e.g. Volume per user. Without this, you may as well be playing Russian Roulette.

This should be abundantly clear today. The question is, where do we go from here? Because this is not sustainable at all. Smaller players will lose all.

A potentially very valuable tool is being damaged in the pursuit of profit. After all, what use is a trustless payment system when it's exchange value can not be trusted?

Agree. It is so easy to fix prices and fake volumes in a 0% commission market.

This rally has a lot to do with the trend that most major Chinese exchanges switched to 0% commission mode to start a price war.

A war in which everyone loses due to greed.

We won't play that game, but the longer everyone else does, the more BTC is damaged.

Every customer likes low commission rate, exchanges compete with each other by offering low rates.

They are fighting for market share, as long as there's no government subsidies involved, it's a normal free market.

It can be cruel, but that's the nature of Capitalism.

I fail to see the difference between an ultra low commission rate (e.g. 0.001%) and 0%, or the connection between 0% commission rate and all the bad things you warned about.

I honestly do not understand. Are you saying that the 0% fees chinese exchanges have employed are creating a speculative bubble? Or is it that they are faking their volumes and prices? How are the exchanges making money in the present without fees? Are you saying they are front running their traders to make money off them? I'd like to hear more about this please.

Intersted. What do you need? I didn't find an email address to drop you a message.

Totally agree. And ICP doesn't imply any government sponsorship.

This can be explained in a very Chinese backround -- it can only start in China in this half of 2013, but I don't have time today to write another 1000 words article, just to give you the briefest information: GC001(Shanghai A-share 204001) at peak was 10%-yearly-return yesterday, and peaked 57%-yearly-return in the last month, that means banks desperately need money, caught unaware of People's Bank of China's tightening policy. It means in China if you have money you can safely lend them to banks (NOT borrowing money from BANKS) and earn so high a profit that you have to risk a lot to earn in the west -- also means as individual if you have money now it is a bad idea to spend them (should invest). Exchanges can do this safe investment (bnaks back it with long-term People's Bank of China's bond), with precise proforlio management you don't even have a delay in your customers cash withdraw.

This special condition lasted since June. If Exchanges are using this strategy, they could have adopted it 4 months ago, so it can even be prudent decisions to change to 0% now. If central bank no longer tighten their policy, you still have a grace period to announce a fee as banks gradually returns you the money.

Above are my speculation. Not a fact, but better than wild guesses floating around.

Besides, the zeitgeist is greed, we believe in monoplay in China, and won't let waste such a chance to grow monoplay.

Lend your money to the banks (not diposite to the banks) and earn rich return (some days 57% annualised), sounds crazy don't you think? Welcome to China. I did exactly this thing, taking money out of Bitcoin exchanges and lending them to the banks, earned my 8% annualised return for a short 3 weeks, and just in these 3 weeks BTC roared from 128usd to 199usd (bitcoin price). Poor decision.

Yes, I believe that has contributed to that.


No, I'm not making any such accusations. I believe a lot of exchanges do pad the order book, either directly or through friends of friends... but there is no evidence either way.


Again, not really.... there is no evidence of this, but there is a large incentive to do so.

For the record, I expect BTCChina is not doing this; at least not directly; they are a very successful established exchange. Some other exchanges have had completely 0% fees, including no fees for deposit/withdrawal, since inception... which does beg the question "how do they make money?". On one hand, it is a waste of time to directly accuse them of such, but I believe it is a question they should address.

For exchanges to work in the real world, it has turned out that oversight is helpful, to prevent things like insider trading, or to have subsets of people with more information than the average customer. Without even any pretence of such oversight, and a 0% fee model, you can draw your own conclusions as to what is likely going on.

However my real point in the above was not to accuse exchanges of malice -- in fact I expect there may well be none; this may all be an accident. I expect BTCChina was just trying to compete.

However, the problem with a complete lack of fees has been that it imposes no material risk on the biggest players to trade with themselves in order to manipulate the market. So we see that, for example, BTCChina had 50k volume; but we have no idea if that is a spread of many users trading, or if the vast majority is a single user (or a kabal) trading back and forth with themselves.

With a material fee, there is a downside risk to such manipulation. However, when the only fee is to withdraw from the exchange, the dynamic changes -- there is a downside risk to _not_ manipulate. The person who manipulates the last or the least, loses.

Sure, there has always been manipulation -- just look at MtGox. But I believe this an order of magnitude larger.  It is 100% a speculative game. The price rising and falling by hundreds of yuan every second? It may as well be an MMORPG. Except this one is played by a couple of overweight millionaires sitting in Wenzhou in their underpants.

I'm all for a free market, dead against regulation, and disagree in artificial stability. But everything has it's limits. Without a material downside risk to trading, the largest trader will always win. Exchanges need to tailor their mechanisms to allow price discovery. If this does not happen, and exchanges are more interested in nurturing sophisticated games of online gambling instead where wild price swings are many times removed from supply and demand, there are a few end-games:
1. Average people -- Bitcoin's future -- will wise up and walk away as they *cannot* win.
2. Exchanges will be regulated or shut down

I think recent developments have made both of these much more likely.

To reiterate: In MtGox or other fee-based exchanges, there is a feedback loop for (1) -- after a while, it becomes too expensive to manipulate so you give up. In China, there is no downside to keeping on until the bitter end.

Maybe I'm wrong; I'm interested in hearing other people's thoughts. I think the price movements pretty much speak for themselves though.


Sure, and this can be a good strategy for the first-mover, but with close to 20 exchanges in China, I don't believe they realistically expect to get market share. (and actually, I think long-term customers care more about liquidity and security than commission rate, too.)

Your point about ultra-low rates is a straw man argument. I am arguing the difference between a material fee and an immaterial one.

0% fees is fine if that's the way you want to play it -- but then, you need to do two things:
(a) impose some sort of control to provide a downside risk on each sale -- e.g. you can't flip again for X hours
(b) Improve transparency and put in place controls to prove to people that you are not succumbing to the temptation to self-trade or give tips to your friends. (I'm not necessarily accusing exchanges of doing this now -- but I believe they inevitably will in a competitive environment with these dynamics).

For your record, bitcoin price fluctuated much more in the previous two crashes. No 0 trading fee policy that time so no reason to blame it for causing the high velotality. To me, it just increases the (fake) volume and its effect on the global market price is negligible.

Since all the commission fee goes  to exchange operators, if they want to play with trade volumes, there should be no difference between a 0% fee and a 10% fee.

otoh, if 0%fee encourages their customer base to make more trades, self-trade or not, l am perfectly fine with that.

I don't think there's real "insider trading" in the Bitcoin world similar to the stock trading, where company's operation or financial information can give certain group of people huge advantages.


By the government? oh no, please.

Unless you are an exchange operator yourself, I really don't see the incentive for self-trading. For a small fish, you can trade 1BTC 1000 times a day, but all it takes is 1 BTC to take you out of the equation.

For the big fry, self-trading near strike price does help market liquidity. I remember when I made my initial investment into a altcoin, I was troubled by the lack of liquidity there, I had to pay few extra percentage points to get my orders fulfilled, I end up cancelling many orders. I wouldn't have had such a problem if there were people there "self-trading" ;)

With this many exchanges, I think the market is trying to tell you something: a) this is a over-crowed field, don't open new exchange anymore, b) if you do decide to do it, be prepared for really tough competition.

How exactly does one lend money to a bank in China? (I'm in the US)

I'll back him up on this. Very concrete point.
I live in Beijing too.

Guys please read this man carefully. Ten times if you really want to understand china.
Mr.Zhang you must be born before 1978 right? You are too matured to be younger...

Start your favourite stock exchange software, type to invest in a virtual company whose code is 204004, the money will be back in your account in 4 days. This money, is lent to any bank who offers the rate of that time, but you are not told which bank has this money. 204028 lends the money for 28 days. There are half a dozen such 'virtual companies'. There is no advertisement or explanation on neither stock exchange agent's website nor in the software, only if you know the code, you can lend the money, anyone who can buy stock option can do so. A lot are doing this.

Which agencies support this function? I suppose not all of them or most of them?

Thanks for the flower. I was born early 80s, that is close to 1978. You seems to be aware of the big changes since 80s, that means you are keen on observation and history as well.

All of those who can traded on ShangHai A-stock. They are like  VIRTUAL PUBLIC COMPANIES on ShangHai A-stock market. Notice I corrected their cold to 204004, 204028 etc. Not 200004. that was a typo.

Any Chinese stock investor can confirm this? This seems to be very secret since I cannot find anything about it through searching the Internet.