Bitcoin Forum

What is going on in China? Are they pumping before dumping on Jan 31st?

Why would they dump on the 31st? Most of the coins have been going into China for the past months.

I thought bitcoin exchanges were made illegal by the PBC, how are they buying Bitcoin?

thats not true. research again.

In reaction to the Chinese government's action toward banning deposits (withdrawals still allowed) into BTC exchanges BTC China stated the following,
https://vip.btcchina.com/page/notice20131220


2 days ago, January 3rd, BTC China cut its withdrawal fees in half
https://vip.btcchina.com/page/notice20140103

Now there is money pouring into BTC exchanges that have been warned by the Chinese government. Who are these people that are willing to risk their BTC by placing them into exchanges? It is HIGHLY likely that the government will escalate their actions. One thing is rhetoric, another is measures and measures have already been taken. Something is coming. It makes 0 sense that the Chinese are buying BTC now.

Not correct.

It makes every sense that we would see Chinese buying Bitcoin, especially now.  If in case it becomes more difficult in the future to purchase Bitcoin here, it's best to buy them while you can.  Wouldn't you?  Or perhaps not if you don't believe in the fundamentals of Bitcoin or see a future for it.  

Well clearly it's not correct, can someone actually explain the true litigation that's been enacted by the Chinese on BTC. Every other week it's a game of tennis between legal and illegal.

Deposits were made illegal. Exchanges are legal as the government wants its citizens to convert all their BTC into yuan. China should be selling now. Why are they buying?

Deposits were not made illegal.  The government has only disallowed major banks and financial insitutions from transferring funds to exchanges. 

It does make sense but buying is severely restricted. How are they doing all this buying?

Where are you guys seeing the data that China is buying a bunch of bitcoins. Maybe it's a dumb question I should know the answer to, but I would love to see who (what countries) are buying/selling on any given day.

In regards to China though. In my experience, regardless of what laws exist if people want something it's going to happen on a massive scale in China regardless.  I remember a couple years back smoking indoors at most places was banned,  for a week or two most place removed ashtrays and would ask you to go outside. Within about 2 weeks EVERYWHERE was allowing people to smoke inside again,  just a simple case of too many people wanting something and it's too hard/not worth it to enforce.   I would think bitcoin is in the same boat, if enough people in China want it (and it makes sense the would) then people are going to get it, and on a large scale due to the number of people living in China.

Really it should be a testament to the nature of bitcoin and even when bad things happen or places try to clamp down on it, if people want it they will get it. Similar to P2P being used to download pirated content, as hard as place has tried to crack down on it it's still as easy as pie to do it and get away with it.

On a side note... I posted a link about SINA launching a page for bitcoin prices and news on my wechat (chinese social app) and I was suprised to see the number of 'friends'  who liked or commented my post.  People who I never would have thought known about bitcoin were talking about loving bitcoin.

They are going to place a btc locket/machine in hongkong. Announched today, maybe thats related?

I hope Hong Kong becomes a hub for bitcoin. The chinese should open up bank accounts in HK and buy bitcoins in the HK exchanges. I'm not sure about the policy though.

It's good to hear that china is buying bitcoin like crazy but this might lead to chinese gov taking further and more negative action against bitcoin, then the news will be blown up with FUD, noobs will panic sell and we'll fall back into another hurdle that will take months to recover from.

BTCChina started selling "gift cards" at stores.  You buy them and use the code and they allow that amount of dollars on the exchange.

Chinese are smart, they know how to move money around, its not rocket science to avoid these regulations. Just another step.

The main thing is BTC is perfectly legal to trade. And LTC :-)

Thank you! Other than this one post, the rest of the thread seems to be disinformation.

can someone explain this to me as if i were 5?

If you live in an authoritarian country and are worried about having the value of your currency inflated away or if you want to have assets available if you need to flee the socialists/communists/fascists/authoritarians you would be buying bitcoins or if you could buy hard assets overseas, then those too.

Bitcoin gives the Chinese a safe-haven from the depredations of the authoritarians in their government and lets them have options when the Yuan is devalued, or when there is strife from too many controls etc.  This doesn't apply to just China, btw, but anywhere people want to protect themselves from people who who want to take the fruits of their labor by force.

;-)

People are confusing trading volume with money flowing into bitcoins.

The trading volume is high right now because BTCChina has adopted a maker-taker pricing structure, which actually pays a 0.3% rebate to traders who place limit orders that are not executed immediately.  That has prompted a relatively small number of people in China to continue to do a large amount of day trading.

The important thing to remember is that every trade involves a buyer and a seller.  The buyer is getting into bitcoins, but the seller is getting out of the exact same number of bitcoins!  This is not strong demand.  It's just day trading.

I'm not sure what's going to happen with the Jan 31 deadline.  Perhaps many day traders are planning to cash out at the last minute, and that will cause a price dip.  Perhaps others will decide to stay invested and keep day trading, even though they might not ever be able to cash out.  Perhaps some of them will hold their bitcoins, hoping that someday they will be useful in the future.  Or perhaps the exchanges will find ways around the policies, and things will keep going as they are now.

For my part, I'm planning to have fiat at the exchanges in hopes of picking up some cheap coins in the last week of January!

Those sneaky smart Chinese Bastards. That;s a great way of getting round restrictions.

Haha, I've always said people will find a way around bans or restrictions so it's futile as people will always find a way to capitalise on prohibition.

The word is that the majority of the volume is being done on a different Chinese exchange that is backed by a Chinese personal bank account.  This is a way to circumvent the laws and guidelines that were passed in China regarding the third party payment processors...

The ban is for the highly connected, and untouchable Chinese to get their Yuan into Bitcoin at a cheaper price. The rest of the population is just going to have to take two weeks to figure out another way.

Notice that Chinese stock market is falling 2% yesterday. Could have some impact on BTC price in short term.

For now, perhaps it is.

But what about when the Chinese government make it impossible for the exchanges to operate.

Who is going to fill in that 65% trade volume gap should such a situation arise?

India?

Netflix customers?

Could you explain the "trade volume gap" theory to me?  I cannot understand why it has any impact on bitcoin if a bunch of people in China stop day trading.  It's not as if they were buying goods and services.

Sorry, what deadline?

Ah, I found it: "Companies currently offering Bitcoin related services must end services by the Chinese New Year, a weeklong holiday that begins on Jan. 31" So I guess there will probably be negative influences to bitcoin prices at least until all the companies end opting out, no?

In china, the central bank belongs to the government, and the government is led by communist party, so some higher officials in government/party have higher power than banks, their personal account should never be touched by the banks. I guess this might eventually lead to some government officials become the bitcoin exchange center  ;D

WHere did you find that??

http://mobile.bloomberg.com/news/2013-12-17/china-bans-payment-companies-from-clearing-bitcoin-news-says.html