Bitcoin Forum

Is it possible or will be possible in the future to withdrawal Chinese renminbi from Bitcoinica?  I see they allow deposits using Alipay, but no withdrawals yet. 

You can withdraw RMB  via Mtgox currently.

That's not possible now.  If you withdraw BTCs to another exchange you can exchange them and withdraw to CNY there.  BTC China charges 0.3% for the exchange.  Not sure what withdrawal they offer for withdrawal method once you have CNYs.
 - https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Bit

Mt. Gox will exchange into CNY as well:
 - https://mtgox.com/press_release_20111028.html

Any many other exchange will do an international wire, though the fees can take a chunk out.
 - https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Selling_bitcoins

https.btcchina.com (http://https.btcchina.com) Has just started adding an English UI to the site and is atm the the cheapest processor for CNY-BTC or BTC-CNY 0.3% trade fees and withdrawal fees of either 0.5% for tencentpay withdrawals or 1.0% for Alipay withdrawals.

I don't think MtGox allows withdraw to mainland China banks.  If that is not true let me know as it would help me out a lot.  I send a lot of money to China each month.  They could be considered micropayments but since my only option right now is sending with Moneygram I have to hold paying until some of my employees have enough money.  I try to send at least once a month, but if they don't do enough work in the month it cuts into both our profits and isn't worth it for either of us.

I thought about btcchina.com but their volume is still very low.  Also I can get a better rate with moneygram even after accounting for the $10 fee they charge.  There is a great triangular arbitrage opportunity with btcchina.com btw.

I am basically paying some people in China a good living wage.  If there was a cheaper way to send money to China via bitcoin then I could increase the payments and even hire more people since right now I need someone to wait so long for payment.  If I could pay people immediately for their work then I could get a lot of part timers too.

I believe volume on btcchina is at least a few hundred BTC per day and it's fees are about the cheapest of any exchange. It's RMB is a bit less than Mt. Gox but IMO it's not such a huge difference to warrant the effort to try and do arbitrage.

If you can purchase BTC directly from a US individual then I can't see a cheaper way you could such a transfer (and if you happen to buy on a slow rise you'll probably actually profit out of the transfer).

I am a US individual.  I am not interested in arbitrage, that was just a suggestion to others.  Hopefully they can increase the volume so I can easily send some money to people in China.

People pay me to translate things from Chinese into English.  I also do photoshop editing.  I send the work to people in China and they translate/edit it.  I would like to pay them for each project they complete but since I have to send them money using moneygram the fees eat into the profit.  I can only keep full time workers as if they work part-time they won't make enough money to make it profitable for both of us because of the fees.

Hi Stochastic,

You might want to have a look at Cryptoxchange. I'm in China on the mainland and regularly receive wires from there. Atm I think it would work out to the same but they're supposed to be launching some plans that afaik should make life a lot easier for some in your situation. Plus you could probably pay peeps here in USD or AUD as conversion spreads at banks here are considerably lower than in the US or EU.

Mt Gox will process wires to the Chinese mainland as well unless they have had a major policy change since the last time I used them. However they might not be willing to send funds to third party accounts.

Wiring would not be an option for me.  Those fees can cost up to $25 each.  I can send cheaper with Moneygram.

Hundreds of BTC per day is really not enough volume?

The big problem is the discrepancy between BTC/USD, BTC/RMB, and USD/RMB.  For example, if I tell someone I am going to pay them 6.322¥ (~$1) per translated/edited page and convert 1 USD to BTC for $5.32670 per BTC.  Then transferring the bitcoins to that employee they would have 0.1866071 BTC after fees.  They then convert BTC to RMB for 31.91¥ per BTC and come out with 5.930814¥ after fees.  This doesn't include any fees that Tenpay or other processors might do to transfer it to their bank account.

So I told them $1 per page of work but they are really getting $0.9381 per page of work.  That is over a 6% decline.

I understand there is often a variance in the price between exchanges, however, is it really possible to send $1 overseas via another method?

That being said if you really do want to do such micropayments is it going to hurt you so much to pay them $1.06 or even $1.10?

(P.S. or you could just say to them you are paying 6 RMB per hour rather than 1 USD and then they might be happy to end up with a little more)

That is why I don't send micropayments overseas.  I might as well just employ someone full time and pay them each month via moneygram.  I need steady work with a full time worker.  I already have a few people working full time and have to turn down work because it is not beneficial for some people to do it part time if they are getting so much less.

Hopefully when more people in China start to adopt bitcoin I can start that.

I've had good experiences using Intersango -> BTC -> BTCChina as a method of remittance, haven't done it too often though.

If the spread is too large then it would be better to do a wire (again, which I've done directly from Intersango).

Umm what makes you think there aren't a lot of people here willing to accept bitcoin?

Yeah exactly, it's only a matter of most never having heard of it.

And also that on the whole anything viewed as being something the "powers that be" might not like is not something that a lot of Chinese are going to get too involved with.

Well, I am not sure about that, they can be rebellious against their government, so BTC may be a haven for some of their wealth.

Chinese people are amazing, I think if they adopt bitcoin, they could do well.  I am reminded of tank man, and of the chinese students talking down the soldiers in Tienanmen Square that day.  I recall the soldiers dumbfounded, against the simple students who would say "How can you do this?"  The wheels of communism would not roll over tank man.

I think more Chinese should put value in bitcoin.  Maybe they just don't understand crypto?  Once one of these countries takes a portion of their GDP in BTC, the world we know now, will no longer exist.

Very few Chinese understand much about crypto and most don't even bother trying to work out how to access blocked websites (they just end up using Chinese websites that are more or less equivalent - so Chinese search with Baidu, post photos and information on Weibo and watch videos on Youku and Tudou).

Most Chinese (including the countryside workers) would have a mobile phone though and more and more would be smartphones so their might be some interest in using smartphone for payments but keeping their bitcoins securely stored would be a big problem.

That being said the government so far has not been anti-bitcoin (several reports on CCTV have been quite positive and CCTV *is* the government mouthpiece) also their banks let you buy gold and silver currently so who knows maybe Chinese banks will be the first in the world to let you set up a BTC account.