Great idea! Follow up on it! I would like to see bitcoin exchanges also in africa since there is a real demand for efficent money service businesses. Currently a wide network of local fiat exchanges has established in africa, based on sms (short message service) money transactions. Because africa is a large country there are not as many banks around the corner like in europe or US. Sometimes you have to drive hundres of miles to reach a bank. Replacing this sms money service with digital currencies might be a very productive undertaking, since this is a real market demand. And the africain enconomy is doing very well.

Thanks for your comments. I love the comment of Sephera, it remembers me to the words a former CME pit trader said once: "The market is whore. It f***s people. Continuously. It is its job!"

Well, yes, i am absolutely sarcastic about the Chinese intervention. Not so much about the meltdown of 5 billions dollars in market cap. But about how the Chinese "government" treats the bitcoin market. They play with it like a toy - without any responsibility. In my opinion its a price manipulation, because from a government we can except not to decide a market collapse according to their instinct. They are aware of their manipulative power, thus its in their responsibility to prepare a market before releasing such an extensive decision like that. And every reliable government do this. To say it in the words of Sephera.. "They f***ed not only the market, they f***ed even their own people with this decision".

But at least we can be thankful the market now washes out the Chinese. The bitcoin needs an reliable and stable environment for future growth.

Not ending this lines without making you aware of the current market situation from my view. First in end of January we will have the latecomers in china changing back into Yuan. Means sell pressure in the end of January is likely. Secondly a lot of people not trading with stp orders, sitting now on losses. Means when the price comes back, the sheeps will sell. The next weeks there is a lot of resistence in the market. Since nearly every government is now talking about bitcoin - even Bloomberg they introduced the "12 bitcoin days" - there is a lot of news around bitcoins now. Means new buyers will come into the market also. The chance of a fast recovering is very good, but in my view a new rally up to 1300 USD is not likely before spring 2014.

Thanks for your comments! Have relaxed Christmas days and a happy new year.

This was the biggest price manipulation in the bitcoin history caused by the Chinese regime.

Let's fight back:

See:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=376423.0

No its not a gamble. Its a question of demand and supply. As far as there is more supply because the Chinese have forbidden bitcoins and Mr. Lee and Mrs. Chang HAVE to sell their coins, than the price will go done. They own approx. 20-30% of all bitcoins. Or in other words: if you buy bitcoin now, you pay a Chinese bill. Do you like that idea?

Until the end of january there is sell pressure on the market. See https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=376423.0

First let me apologize not shared my opinions with you in the past. Because of that I have to post to the newbie forum. Maybe the moderation is so kind and moves this letter to trading discussion thread.

First of all I have to thank all of you, and all bitcoin and litecoin traders, developers and enthusiasms for this exciting year. 2013 was definitely the bitcoin year and there a decades to come.

Today we saw the biggest price manipulation in the bitcoin history caused by the Chinese regime. Yesterday evening the Chinese regime decided to forbid bitcoin in their country and today the markets corresponded accordingly. Today we as the bitcoin community got an early Christmas present from the Chinese. And I am not ironic here.

Let me conclude:

Since Baidu (the Chinese’s google) accepted bitcoins, the Chinese people got big invested into bitcoins. BTC China claims, that their market share had been around about 25%. Today they have forbidden it completely. Following to the Chinese "finance minister" all Chinese can withdraw their bitcoins just until the end of January.

I remember the beginning of 2013 when everybody was talking about the fear, that bitcoin can be forbidden by governments. And how bad that would be. As from now we have an example – a model - how governments react when they forbid bitcoins. They do it quickly and they give their people a ultimatum to change the digital currencies back to their own fiat currency.

Let me repeat -  they give a limited timeframe to all bitcoin owners to change it back to fiat money. This reveals the biggest weakness of such a situation. That means that every Chinese holding his bitcoins longer than 31th January 2014 is locked into bitcoin.

How good is that! We now can predict the behalf of the market until 31th January very precisely. There will be a lot of sell pressure, forced by the Chinese bitcoin holders, until the end of January.  And they can only sell, otherwise they don’t get back their money.

Everyone of you, placing an buy order now, will pay a Chinese bill. As this has been an act of deliberate price manipulation by the Chinese, which is by the way illegal in all free countries I am aware of, we should not allow them this to be happen.

My recommendation to all big boys and bitcoin traders out there, let them pay for this act of deliberate price manipulation. Do not place any buy orders until February anymore. Let the market go down to even a 10 dollars. Since the Chinese have to sell, they will find no buyers anymore. And as a penalty for this act of deliberate price manipulation we get back our bitcoins for less. If they do not sell until January because of low prices, then they will be locked into bitcoins. This means they just can spend their bitcoins which supports the native bitcoin economy what is definitely in our interest.

My recommendation to all major exchanges including MtGox, Bitstamp and BTC-E is the following: Forbid your Chinese customers to trade on your platform as a penalty for this act of deliberate price manipulation, which is illegal in Japan, Europe and Russia. You have the best argument ever: you can tell your Chinese customers that in their country bitcoin is forbidden and therefore you are not willing to continue the business relation, because this is against Chinese law. Better than that: if you allow the Chinese to deduct their money from you, than you pay Mr. BTC Chinas bills. The CEO of BTC China is only alone responsible to pay his people. If you forbid Chinese to trade with you, you turn down your biggest competitor in even weeks.

Since today we do not have to fear the shutdown of bitcoin in any state anymore, because we can react accordingly to it. That’s the big gift. In my opinion we as the bitcoin community – the cloud economy – should not allow governments and regimes like the Chinese to play with the liability of bitcoin anymore. If the Chinese say good bye to the privatization of the financial system – that’s up to them; by the way China is not a free country. But no government on this world is authorized for deliberate price manipulation of any assets. This is against moral.

Help and tell you friends! Send this information to all exchanges. If the exchanges get ten or even 50 mails from you and me and your friends hopefully the exchanges will react to protect the bitcoin.

Best wishes and a happy new 2014! It will be great!