That's my feeling as well. Capital flight was always a concern for the Chinese government in the context of Bitcoin, but until recently, the markets were small enough that they didn't feel the need to take action. The proliferation of so many large ICOs so quickly probably sped things along.

It seems crazy to think that they could actually prevent their citizens from obtaining and using cryptocurrencies. But with the recent moves to crack down on VPN usage, it seems like they really think they can control how Chinese people use the internet (and internet money).

I hope that the domestic exchange and ICO ban is all that will happen. There have even been suggestions that these bans are temporary, and that the government will institute a licensing regime for them.

However, there is some scary FUD floating around that would be much worse:

https://twitter.com/btcdrak/status/908998917995552776

They can't really block access to the Bitcoin network anymore than they can block access to Google. That is to say, average citizens can probably circumvent it. But if true, this could provide another major round of FUD that could rock the markets.

This is crypto. I'd much rather take a gamble on various altcoins with decent charts and fundamentals, for a shot at a 10x-20x whale trade. Given everything that's happened, half-price doesn't seem like nearly good enough of a deal. Even if you assume that they will remain operational for the foreseeable future, even the site admins themselves (on the forums after the takedown) said that the tokens would likely take 1-2 years to redeem. That's a lifetime in crypto.

It's very clear by now that they intend to operate as if nothing happened. BTC-e was operated by Always Efficient LLP, which is/was registered in and incorporated in England. So WEX is trying to maintain that, somehow, only the customer base was bought by the new exchange, despite holding their payable account obligations (fiat, crypto and now debt tokens from BTC-e). The coins that were used to back current accounts on WEX -- where did they come from, if not BTC-e? Thin air?

Casual miners will probably need to find OTC / LocalBitcoins types of trades in order to cover their mining expenses. But they may not be in the worst position. With no exchanges offering BTCCNY trading, there will probably be an explosion in local OTC trading. I hope the government doesn't react poorly to that as well. In any case, from the looks of it, regulated exchanges are the end goal here. So I think we're probably just looking at a few months where OTC trading is the only option.

One of the main questions is what they can do now. It could be several months (at least) before there are any regulated exchanges in China; Huobi and Okcoin aren't even set to close BTCCNY trading until October 31st.

There seems to have been some emphasis on "order book" exchanges, at least from Jihan Wu. That leads me to believe that OTC trades may still be fine, so miners could cover their overhead expenses that way in the interim.

Well, of course they can't trade above the face value. Who would pay more than that? They are worth (face value) - (time to be repaid) - (chance of not being repaid). That's my take on it, anyway.

As for plans... I hate to offer advice. I think they might be pumped and dumped like the BFX tokens were, so it might be possible to get a good deal of your money back without waiting too long. But who knows? They could collapse, too. If you hold them, then pray for no bad news.

Welcome to trading. How you describe your emotional reactions is exactly what it's like to be a trader trying to keep his emotions in check. It's a constant battle keeping emotions out of your trades, and sticking to your plan. It's a necessary discipline that you develop over time (or otherwise, you find another way to lose your money).

The other thing about being a trader: Our positions are always too big on the losers and too small on the winners. That's just how life goes. The key is to find a system that is profitable.

I'm really happy to see the guys behind BTC-e make good on their promises -- as expected. It's an extraordinary feat, given the pressure from the US authorities. I wonder how long an .nz domain can last before they have to move elsewhere.


Are they IP-banning? I imagine not. Any US users better be careful how much you keep there. If you ever get locked out of your account and need to verify, that will be grounds for account termination.


Yes, but I don't think it would have been a bad decision with the information given at the time. Originally, they made it sound like 1) no US users and 2) verification required. It may have been a calculated move to scare the panickers into giving away their money.

New update from BTC-e's official Twitter:

https://twitter.com/btcecom/status/908785405117550594

I'm at work right now, so I'll wait until I'm at home behind a VPN to see for myself. Unfortunately, it sounds like many people are reporting that the site is not loading. "Server error." Hopefully this gets sorted out soon and we see live trading in the coming hours. Fingers crossed.

Okcoin and Huobi have announced that that they will stop CNY-to-cryptocurrency trading services on Oct 31st. Most announcements regard fiat trading. But it doesn't matter. The damage is done: CNY deposits are disabled. There can be no money coming into the exchanges until they are properly licensed. That could be months away.

The price went up because 1) technical support at $3000 area and weekly 20MA, and 2) the exchange closures had already largely been priced in by then. Now that we have an interim bottom in place, the question is, are we in a longer term bear market now?

Why? I mean, I expect Bitfinex to be the next exchange to be shut down by the US Government (for an assortment of reasons -- unregistered securities, unlicensed MSB, money laundering conspiracy). But not the Chinese government. Even if they were still organized primarily in Hong Kong, I'm not sure that the PBOC ban would apply there. They tweeted this earlier today regarding their status as a British Virgin Islands company:

This can be true -- for long term investors, anything that can trigger a drop in price is a buying opportunity. However, it's possible that this price action has also set into motion a longer term bear market. Those who were around in 2013 will recall that the 2-year bear market that followed started very similarly.

I'm hoping that we'll V-bottom off the weekly middle Bollinger Band (~ $2900-3000 area), because if we don't, price will overlap into the previous consolidation. That indicates significant bearishness to me, and says that one should be selling the bounce that follows....

We'll need more info to give you a proper answer. There is also a search function, FYI. See this thread for an up-to-date list of exchanges for BTC/fiat trading: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2118380.0 There are some exchanges listed there that deal with altcoins as well, and I think the OP plans to add a section for altcoin exchanges.

If you want to trade futures (high leverage, Bitcoin-only collateral), then I would look into Bitmex. They have the best liquidity for futures contracts. I also use 1Broker to trade stocks/commodities with BTC collateral. PM me for a referral link.

Have you tried to connect to the site using a VPN? That's what I would suggest, or at least the TOR browser if nothing else. Other users are reporting that, due to attacks which Nova seems unable to properly address, they are banning IP ranges. That's also why they've shut down the registration function. It seems that some users, depending on their country of residence, are unable to connect at all.

If you can connect via VPN, then get your coins off this exchange ASAP. They seem incompetent at best, and on the verge of exit scamming at worst.

Blockchain.info is very known and reputable, and they do not have access to your private keys. There a couple things that may have happened here. 1) Occasionally, their nodes are wrong and show a zero-balance or incorrect balance. You can import your private key or wallet seed into another wallet (or manually check your public addresses on another block explorer) to see if this is the case.

Or 2) your computer may have been compromised, allowing hackers access to the private keys via the browser. Or 3) You gave away your recovery seed or password away in a scam. There have been scams going around where the victim is asked to provide password, then change it. Afterwords, the BTC is stolen using the recovery seed.

Strange. I recently opened a Coinbase/GDAX account a couple months ago with an Outlook email address. Never used the email anywhere else. My inbox and spam folders are still completely empty... no sign of these two phishing emails.

So, if their database was compromised, then the phishers were unable obtain my email address. That's strange, given that it was created before yours. I'm guessing the OP's setup (or another service involved) is compromised, or that the story is just BS.

The bolded portion -- this hadn't even occurred to me. Thanks for pointing it out. I remember hearing years ago that these sorts of regulatory threats often come as we approach an incoming CPC Congress. This may be important to note.

I think there is a good possibility that there is internal party disagreement. Some officials must realize that they would be handicapping their financial industry for years to come if they make sweeping regulations against Bitcoin.

There is certainly hype. I think what people call "bubbles" are more precisely called "hype cycles" in a broader context of mainstream technology adoption. But hype =/= fraud, not by a long shot. Whatever his comments did to the price -- probably not much, as I think the continued China rumors are having a much greater effect -- this will go down in history.

A few years from now, I think people will see Jamie Dimon and his "fraud" comments just like they do Professor Bitcorn and his $10 price prophecies. Bitcoin always bucks the FUD in due course.

Mining and ASIC chip manufacturing aside, you may be right in the long term. As for the short term, we may not have seen the full effects of the rumor and potential exchange ban yet. Down-trending markets tend not to crash right away; they tend to bleed slowly until momentum builds into a crash.

If this is anything like 2014, then we haven't seen the end of the effects of these fundamental catalysts yet. I'm still holding out some hope that bulls can hold the $4,000 area and we can continue building a base for another wave up, but we need to keep an open mind here.