Bitcoin Forum

Ok for the past few days, everyone has been talking about the situation in China. From what you hear, financial institutions are banned from using or dealing with Bitcoin, as well as not dealing with Bitcoin exchanges. For the record, those news articles have been exaggerated. If you read the official statement (not a news article from a company whose business is to lure you in with exciting headlines to sell you ads) here The People's Bank of China (http://www.pbc.gov.cn/publish/goutongjiaoliu/524/2013/20131205153950799182785/20131205153950799182785_.html), you will see that it has only ADVISED banks not to deal with Bitcoin. It's not law or anything, just a statement.  (NOTE: Link is in Chinese.)

Just going to clarify, this announcement you're referencing from PBOC is dated December 5th.

What everyone seems to be up in arms about is a more recent news development that's arrived around December 16th.  It has not been well received in China: http://tech.sina.com.cn/it/2013-12-18/01299015304.shtml

Hopeful tacoman misinterpreted thing himself. Or was just being delusional.

China is severely curtailing bitcoin. FACT.

Maybe india will save it?


Or, just maybe, those EBIL Americans and American government and West in general might actually wind up being the only place where you can use cryptocurrency in a relatively free manner.


LOL @ all the ignorant, 'revolutionary' fucks who made US out to be the ultimate evil tyranny then getting assfucked by other governments like this.

How's that ignorant, childish anti-US thing working out now? Funny how people run back to US when they actually start getting into trouble.

Um, last time I checked the only major bank to come out in support of virtual currencies is Sberbank - Russia's largest bank.
http://www.coindesk.com/ceo-russian-sberbank-endorses-virtual-currencies/
The largest exchange by volume is now BTC-E in Bulgaria.

Personally I hope the US does come around.
The writing's on the wall for fiat, I know they're all hoping to be able to switch over to SDR's, but that hope just shows how out of touch TPTB are with Milennials - the generation that will be shaping the future of the world. The US is still the base for so much talent. If the government implemented some major spending reforms and got behind Bitcoin, they would be centre of the world again, but TPTB are so afraid of losing control.

Damn forgot to add russia to the list :)

I have little to no qualms about Russia, only that they need to get most of their criminal activities under informal state umbrella one way or another. If they endorse the crypto, they are welcome in my book.

Their paranoia and drastic actions are actually perfectly understandable if you consider their history and life as people in that particular region of the world.

US will come around. We, and our government, do like to make most of opportunities such as these. I am skeptical of all the apocalyptic, 'I am the next prophet' bullshit going on with people ideologically endorsing crypto, but I have little doubts about its practical usage and importance in the world, if only as a stepping stone towards a new uncharter ground in financial means in the future.

Ok, so nobody has links to anything other then reports that say they have a source or multiple sources.

when china made the initial announcement they did so with 4 different agencies, this announcement itself was widely miss translated and interpreted incorrectly.

but none of them provide a source and the 'sources' themselves havent written anything publicly or provided any type of proof for what they supposedly said, only rumor. there has still been no official word or report from anyone in a position to give one within the chinese gov't.

We all know that the markets are linked. what one does they all do. You could also take into account that BTC china had no fees prior to this, so people from all over the world that dont speak chinese are likely trading on that exchange. these people reacted to rumor, taking the resulting price dip as evidence that the rumors were right is just silly. We also know that there are groups of people that sell and buy bitcoins to speculate and likely sold bitcoins after hearing this news knowing that there would likely be a dip in price, especially considering what happened last time with the miss translation and the resulting 200$~ price dip.

As a person that uses sound judgement, who cant read chinese and doesnt live in china i cant possibly believe any of this knowing how people reacted previously to false information and knowing that this time there is no information at all to base anything on.



The rumors themselves only seem to mention companies similar to paypal. while the original announcement by the govt explicitly gave the exchanges the OK to continue to operate. if exchanges could not receive funds in any way, then how would they operate? are we to believe that china has made a complete 180 degree turn? i find this unlikely. Even in the event the rumor is true and companies like paypal cant do business with the exchanges, it wouldnt make much difference as the banks still would be able to, and bitcoins could still be traded locally via meetups.

There is too much miss information... im going to just sit back and watch the show. not like id pull out of bitcoin anyway.

Whatever the official meaning of the PBOC announcement may be, BTCChina has suspended all CNY deposits citing regulatory reasons.

Words of wisdom

I'm calling FUD on these rumors. If it were true that all Chinese btc exchanges were closing, the Chinese section of this forum would be freaking out.  I don't see them talking about it at all.

The official statement was that people can freely trade bitcoin in China. I would listen to Chinese official statements only, not some rumor sites. Whoever sells their bitcoins now will be crying about this decision a few weeks later.

This price dip isn't because of some poorly translated document; there are folks who can translate in 2013.

BitCoin really needs to shine here; show the people on the sidelines it can really weather a storm from some central government and still come out as a viable currency.

Wasn't that the whole point?

Bitcoin will survive just fine, thats a given. however that announcement was translated and summarized in a point of view that the translator favored. it was also widely spread and quoted by people and news agencies. the problem with that is it doesnt leave room for other people to interpret. There were other translations later that highlighted this and gave their own interpretation alongside a realistically accurate translation.

The current situation goes back to that document and seems to counter things that were said. If the chinese govt were changing their position, why didnt they just state it clearly when they made the initial announcement or with subsequent announcements? they gave the OK for exchanges to buy and sell bitcoins as long as they signed up with the govt and followed the rules, if they were going to block the movement of funds into exchanges then why didnt they say so then? If bitcoin has been labeled as a commodity that is legal to own then why is it that exchanges cant accept money so that it can be bought and sold as one? there doesnt seem to be any consistency from the first announcement to these actions. Im thinking people may just be reading too much into the cautionary actions exchanges are taking, possibly based on the uncertainty of the current situation. Even the banks themselves may be stopping payments to the exchanges just to be safe. similar to how banks in US act regarding bitcoin. it was one of the first large companies in china that accepted bitcoin that said they would not be accepting bitcoin as payment for the time being due to legal uncertainties(this last part being neglected in the news and translations).

I only wish i had some money in a place where i could buy some bitcoins.(525$~)(heck even ignoring all the news, you could look at the exchanges value as being normal bitcoin behavior; Price surge, price crash, price stability well above where it started.

Which brings me to how i ended my last post...

...There is too much miss information... im going to just sit back and watch the show. not like id pull out of bitcoin anyway.

I think the market reaction seeing this

http://www.scmp.com/business/banking-finance/article/1384688/bitcoin-price-slump-after-beijing-bans-clearing-services

Is giving an indicator at least that the next step maybe stopping deposits from bank accounts into exchanges and vice versa.

It'll probably hit the speculation market hard (read: pump/dump), but for day to day real economic trade it's business as usual.

What real economic trading? Trading goods in Bitcoin is directly tied to BTC/fiat price. At least what's gonna happen is people will stop doing escrow, or will stop selling for Bitcoin at all, until price cools of.

From https://vip.btcchina.com/account (requires login)

They say it's temporarily. 

Originally I was on the side of thinking the happenings in China weren't too serious and people were overreacting (I still think they are overreacting) but I would now also say that it is pretty serious.  No one being able to depoist funds into the largest exchange in China (and the world for that matter) is a huge bummer.  Companies supposedly no longer being allowed to accept bitcoin for services (hence why baidu and china telecom decided to opt out and not accept bitcoin) is a really huge blow if you ever want bitcoin to continue to expand into the mainstream.

Hopefully things turn around someday in the future. But as of right now I'd say things are pretty bad for China if you wanted bitcoin to continue to grow and expand to the point where it's common place to see it accepted at businesses.

This is great for the people with a clue, who have money waiting. Buy in low.
I would not be surprised if the gang's in China whom have great influence, are pushing this so they can buy in low. Than push to legalize it and sell high.

Anyone in a position to move the market like this, are set to make a crap load. Hold on for the ride.

It's like a yoyo going to a staircase. still going up!

Nothing new in my opinion, china isn't a free country, what did you expect? Freedom? Lol.

Is this sarcasm? If not, why on Earth are you posting in a Bitcoin forum? Interesting choice for a handle, btw. May I suggest watching the documentary series Money as Debt (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqvKjsIxT_8)?

Or another view is that someone WANTS China to be misinterpreted. Corruption is rife, I have to wonder which chinese officials were holding BTC, and which ones sold just before the announcements (And for that matter which ones are buying back as we speak!).

Another cynical view would be that it is well recognised that wall street was reaching acceptance of and looking for an entry point into BTC, so is this a manufactured entry point?

Judging from the rate of BTC buying in US http://fiatleak.com/ I would suggest the latter is happening.

Unfortunately the type of tracking we have in the stock market that helps prevent these kind of activities, is completely absent by design in BTC. I believe if governments want to regulate this market (for the greater good of BTC) that would be a good place to start, at the exchanges.  

Interesting post.  How about this:  China thinks their yuan is on its way to becoming the major currency so they want to stop anything that might stop that.  On the other hand,  the US thinks the dollar is waning so if they can regulate and take charge of the BTC market the US can maintain a grip on currency.

I think that is the BIG thing. This change is about NO 3rd party services being used and apparently NOT about banks. But it looks like, for whatever reason, BTC China temporarily suspended deposits.
It will take a few days for this to play out I think...

http://fiatleak.com/

Watch the amount going into China and weep

Am I reading those stats right? For a country that supposedly put a halt to Bitcoin/fiat trading with its native currency, the Chinese sure are buying up a lot of BTC still.

Yep, it looks like everyone else has been had.

Exchanges can continue but btcchina stopped accepting deposits. This is something big, btc will crash a whole lot more coming weeks. Even below $180 is possible.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-12-18/btc-china-says-it-can-t-accept-new-deposits-for-bitcoin-trading.html

Wow, looks like the Chinese are leading things again! What happened?

if u look at this quote form http://www.theguardian.com/ then it clearly states that the chinease exchanges will have big problems getting fiat in and out :
BTCchina uses this method and therefore this means that the exchanges cant get money in and out after 31 january.
source: http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/dec/18/bitcoin-plummets-china-payment-processors-digital-cryptocurrency

But it looks like you are confusing 3rd party services (e.g. YeePay) with Banks. The confusing thing is that BTC China suspended deposits period, but the "suspended" them in their own words.
Still between clear answers but it looks like banks will be the ONLY method of depositing money.

This young guy does a bit of research and came up with the same thing (though time will tell):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcL991lTA0Q&feature=em-uploademail (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcL991lTA0Q&feature=em-uploademail)

tacoman71 I know last few days were really hard ones for bitcoin as many news channel caused misunderstanding that china has totally banned bitcoin use due to which it tumbled to approximately $500. Well thanks for sharing your information and showing an intention of helping people who heard unclarified news in recent times