China: Worst case scenario.

[ElectricMucus]

Here is what might happen with China, their goverment and the implications on Bitcoins longterm survivability:

On Jan. 31st BTCChina has the withdraw deadline for money on the exchange, and there are signs that they are trying to circumvent that using Voucher auctions.
They officials are probably right now keeping a close eye on the companies exchanges and if they take the actions required of them. So far none of them seem to take it serious enough and they seem to go double down.
The Govt will then probably not only close any other accounts associated (like this Hunobi CEOs private bank account) but also seize the assets.
Next on the list are Bitcoin payment processors, like Bitpay, which given recent statement are a prime candidate for not only a forbidden business but also the great firewall. E-commerce using Bitcoin becomes next to impossible in China at this point.

This then sets the precedent for much more goverment intervention into Bitcoin, and once the chair-poopers get wind of how interconnected the Bitcoin infrastructure really is, how easy it is to set up a money laundering operation mining Bitcoins commercail Bitcoin miners are next, as well as ASIC producers.
The winners of this venture will be companies like BFL which based in the USA are out of reach from China, but given their attitude and past history they might decide to just run with the money gained from their quasi monopoly.
And after a fraud of this magnitude nobody will touch Bitcoin again with a long stick, even in the US.
But also without some chain reaction of this sort Chinese legislation is taken not nearly serious enough. The risk associated with Chinese exchanges trying to operate in this kind of legal gray area is tremendous.

The point is, it is a reckless gamble made because of the greed and pride of the exchange operators on behalf of every other Bitcoiner.

[alivecrypto]

Nothing is going to happen or if happens anything china will be losing their tax and even there money will be laundered to other country to invest in bitcoin.

[piramida]

The winners of this venture will be companies like BFL which based in the USA are out of reach from China, but given their attitude and past history they might decide to just run with the money gained from their quasi monopoly.

I might be wrong, but isn't BFL as well as KNC have their chips printed in China too? Though it is extremely far fetched that chinese would dare to ban something in the chip industry - this precedent will have destructive effects on the real multi-billion semiconductor economy - so no, ASIC producers are fine. As for bank regulations, no idea, but I think HongKong would happily pick up every ball that China drops. We'll see soon. Right now, China's semi-ban and India's complete ban are both factored in and don't affect price anymore, so China has to come up with something very crazy to move the price again.

[MatTheCat]

The winners of this venture will be companies like BFL which based in the USA are out of reach from China, but given their attitude and past history they might decide to just run with the money gained from their quasi monopoly.

I might be wrong, but isn't BFL as well as KNC have their chips printed in China too? Though it is extremely far fetched that chinese would dare to ban something in the chip industry - this precedent will have destructive effects on the real multi-billion semiconductor economy - so no, ASIC producers are fine. As for bank regulations, no idea, but I think HongKong would happily pick up every ball that China drops. We'll see soon. Right now, China's semi-ban and India's complete ban are both factored in and don't affect price anymore, so China has to come up with something very crazy to move the price again.

Seriously, WTF are you talking about!?

CNY transactions still account for more than half of all Bitcoin exchange volume. Apparently, BTC is being kept going in China by legal grey area practices such as 'vouchers' or depositing money direct into exchange CEO's bank account.

If the Chinese government are serious about restricting Bitcoin in their economy, do you think that come the 31st January 2014, they are just going to stand around with their fingers in their mouths saying, "durrrrrh, we never thought of vouchers or private bank deposits, oh well, we have been outsmarted, it's a fair cop"!?

Who knows what is to happen with China. If it were 100% set in stone, then CNY BTC would be a tiny proportion of the Bitcoin market and there wouldn't be any need for pompous self-reassuring remarks from the likes of yourself, telling us all that China has already been priced into market.

But I am here to tell you that it hasn't, and that there exists still a lot of uncertainty about which way things are going to go, not least of all in China, otherwise why the hell are they still all trading a commodity that there government has meant to have just given a death sentence to?

 

[T.Stuart]

otherwise why the hell are they still all trading a commodity that there government has meant to have just given a death sentence to?

I really wish I could give a death sentence to all news about China but I guess that is just not realistic. 

[R2Pleasent]

Here is the REAL worst case scenario for China:

- All deposits / withdrawals disabled to exchanges
- People must trade bitcoins in the black market

At this point I'd say it's unlikely, but still a possibility.  Considering the swift action taken against third party processors, it seems that the government is okay with the current deposit methods being used by Huobi / Fxbtc / etc.  Interestingly, the new deposits are nearly instantaneous in the daytime, and very slow at night.  This is a big improvement from 2 weeks ago, when deposits took up to 24 hours.

We'll see what happens.  The PBOC has announced that they do not wish bitcoins purchased in China to leave the country, which is completely impossible to enforce.  It could be that they are experimenting right now with regulation, but if they determine through these experiments that their goals are impossible to accomplish, they could quite easily just decide to pull the plug.  China's government has no obvious vested interest in Bitcoin. 

[Malawi]

I think that this could go either way, but that prices might fluctuate quite wildly the last week of january.

-Either the chineese flock to BTC before it's regulated as a storage of wealth or to gamble, -or they pull out to be safe. The biggest players are likely to be the ones who have most to benefit from showing loyalty to the party by getting out of BTC. (They are more likely to have orther ventures that requires goodwill, while BTC is only one lost opertunity.)

I think the most likely end result is a (possibly big) drop close to the 31'st and then a rebound to a higher and somewhat stable level as the dust settles.

[bitbrasil]

Seriously, WTF are you talking about!?

CNY transactions still account for more than half of all Bitcoin exchange volume.

What is your source for this?

But forget about the China ban. People will continue to trade person to person and/or keep their bitcoins.

[Mikcik]

Seriously, WTF are you talking about!?

CNY transactions still account for more than half of all Bitcoin exchange volume.

What is your source for this?

But forget about the China ban. People will continue to trade person to person and/or keep their bitcoins.

Omg i dont like these posts... so you think when china really bans bitcoin that there would be enough people trading BTC in the black market that could sustain current demand?

I really dont think so... realize please people already that bitcoin are not drugs, and when some gov. really BANs bitcoin and starts lawfully and little bit agressively persuading this BAN, then majority of population would simply fuck bitcoin off, because its not worth the trouble... (!). Really do you live in the real world, or in a stupid world of your twisted ideals?

[MatTheCat]

Seriously, WTF are you talking about!?

CNY transactions still account for more than half of all Bitcoin exchange volume.

What is your source for this?

Are you serious?

If you are trading or investing in Bitcoins, u must surely know plentiful sources for this 

Right?

[bitbrasil]

Omg i dont like these posts... so you think when china really bans bitcoin that there would be enough people trading BTC in the black market that could sustain current demand?

and you, what do you think? That all chinese are waiting to take action only on the last week of january ?

So show us some proof that chinese transactions are still more than half of all bitcoins. A lot of people saying that but no one proves it.

[bitbrasil]

Seriously, WTF are you talking about!?

CNY transactions still account for more than half of all Bitcoin exchange volume.

What is your source for this?

Are you serious?

If you are trading or investing in Bitcoins, u must surely know plentiful sources for this 

Right?

NO, why don't you show the source??? Don't tell me that your source is fiatleak.com data

[EvilPanda]

otherwise why the hell are they still all trading a commodity that there government has meant to have just given a death sentence to?

I really wish I could give a death sentence to all news about China but I guess that is just not realistic.  

I wish that as well. The China whining goes on and on for over 3 weeks now, go read some old topics instead of making new ones, OP.

[black_swan]

Seriously, WTF are you talking about!?

CNY transactions still account for more than half of all Bitcoin exchange volume.

What is your source for this?

Are you serious?

If you are trading or investing in Bitcoins, u must surely know plentiful sources for this  

Right?

NO, why don't you show the source??? Don't tell me that your source is fiatleak.com data

It probably is, what else can you check?
Oh wait, secret (and manipulated) exchanges data!
Sure he has access to that

[R2Pleasent]

Seriously, WTF are you talking about!?

CNY transactions still account for more than half of all Bitcoin exchange volume.

What is your source for this?

Are you serious?

If you are trading or investing in Bitcoins, u must surely know plentiful sources for this  

Right?

NO, why don't you show the source??? Don't tell me that your source is fiatleak.com data

It probably is, what else can you check?
Oh wait, secret (and manipulated) exchanges data!
Sure he has access to that

www.btckan.com/price

[JimboToronto]

LOLOLOL

hahahaha

 

[hui]

NO, why don't you show the source??? Don't tell me that your source is fiatleak.com data

http://bitcoinity.org/markets/list?currency=ALL&span=24h

[bitbrasil]

NO, why don't you show the source??? Don't tell me that your source is fiatleak.com data

http://bitcoinity.org/markets/list?currency=ALL&span=24h

This list is based on trust that the exchanges are telling the truth about their trade volumes. So it's not proof.

[hui]

http://bitcoinity.org/markets/list?currency=ALL&span=24h

This list is based on trust that the exchanges are telling the truth about their trade volumes. So it's not proof.

the whole bitcoin market depends on the numbers presented (and fulfilled) by the exchanges. if you dont trust their numbers, what kind of proof are you looking for?

is there a special reason to doubt the exchanges on their volume (and maybe a proof)?

[MatTheCat]

It probably is, what else can you check?
Oh wait, secret (and manipulated) exchanges data!
Sure he has access to that

He can go to Bitcoinwisdom and check the trades and volumes on the main CNY exchanges as they are happening. Is that good enough for y'all?

And if the likes of OKCoin and Huobi are manipulating trades or trade data then that would be an even bigger fkn horror story for those interested in a high Bitcoin prices, cos that would mean the price has been getting pushed up on the back of fraudulent transactions. If that came out, the market would have to admit that everyone has been tricked into paying well over the odds for their Bitcoins.

That would be like the reverse effect of the bullion banks admitting they only ever have around 4% of the physical gold to back the paper certificates that they issued.

Oh yeah, and I don't give a damn what anyone says about USD trading having decoupled from China, cos everytime I check, China still seems to be leading the way, especially when some kind of meaningful move is concerned.