I'm not talking about announcing changes to the deposit methods. I'm talking about the fact that the Chinese exchange operators could have gotten together 4-5 months ago, had a meeting, and then published an official joint statement saying something to the effect of, "China has not banned bitcoin [ ... ]. Whatever you read, whatever you hear, it is not banned [ ... ] We will continue to work around the deposit issues with the PBOC.
They said that, and even officers from the People's Bank of China said that. One officer said that, for them, bitcoins are like stamps. And OBVIOUSLY bitcoin was never banned, otherwise the exchanges would have been shut down immediately.
(But note that the PBoC is only one of the five government agencies that issued the December decree. The PBoC worries only about stability of the yuan and of the financial system, and is the agency that deals with banks and payment processors; so any decisions about these entities are issued trough the PBoC, out of respect for the government's organogram. Like central banks in many other countries, the PBoC does not regulate the bitcoin exchanges, and apparently would rather not to -- they are too small for them. Other Chinese government agencies worry about money laundering, bribing, foreign subversion, illegal trade, tax evasion, etc.; and they certainly could shut down the exchanges, without going through the PBoC, if they decided to.)
[ ... ] and will never be banned.
How could they say that? Even the US government may ban bitcoin next week...
Also do not believe any Chinese FUD related to our eventual exchanges demise. Our Chinese exchanges [ .. ] will never shut down.
One Chinese exchange, at least, shut down because of the PBoC restrictions. The CEOs of the other exchanges were quite worried that they would have to shut down, several times, but when they found workarounds they immediately reassured their clients and the press. And they STILL may be shut down eventually.
Also, OKCoin's volume is skewed based on 0% fees and HFT only, but it's not fake per se. But yes, it is a little misleading for sure. They could have offically published this [ ... ] on official sites like Coindesk.
Huobi's CEO said so himself on his very first interview by CoinDesk. (Which, by teh way, is certainly not an "official site" of anything. More like a press release distribution service.)
They could have offically published this in English for the Westerners.
Come on! Why should they?
FUD is supposed to be "Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt"
* Fear is the proper thing to feel when you know of a possible future event that may be bad for you.
* Uncertainty is what you necessarily have when you do not have enough information to be certain.
* Doubt is what you should always have about any statement by someone who wants your money.
So it is good to have some FUD now and then. FUD is always better than SHT (Sales Hype and Tripe).