SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Submitted via IRC for SoyCow5743
When the Chinese government announced a ban on initial coin offerings last week, it looked like an attempt to rein in the speculative excesses of the cryptocurrency economy. But now it seems like it might have been the start of something more ambitious: a coordinated campaign to shut down use of cryptocurrency in the Middle Kingdom.
The full extent of the Chinese crackdown isn't clear yet, in part because key decisions have only been communicated privately to Chinese Bitcoin exchanges. But a couple of Bitcoin exchanges have now announced that they are shutting down. And leaked documents suggest that the rest will be required to do so before the end of the month. Chinese users will be given a chance to withdraw their funds before the exchanges shut down.
"BTCChina encourages customers to withdraw their funds as quickly as possible," one of the exchanges wrote in a Friday tweet. "Customers can withdraw their funds whenever they want."
Bitcoin has always been something of an awkward fit for China, which strictly regulates financial markets and limits the flow of funds overseas. Chinese officials have apparently concluded that Bitcoin has become too popular as a way to circumvent those regulations.
Source: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/09/china-may-be-getting-ready-to-ban-bitcoin/
(Score: 3, Interesting) by looorg on Sunday September 17 2017, @06:13PM
https://www.coinbase.com/charts [coinbase.com]
I don't know if this is good value chart in general but it's the first one that came up in a search so lets just assume it's at least an ok metric for a discussion. If the Chinese announced this about a week or so ago, there has been a sharp drop in value right afterwards. Certainly so from the peak of almost $5k at the beginning of the month (Sep, 2017). So for the month it might look somewhat dire. If one just changes the perspective to a one year perspective even with the drop this month it is still up massively, a yearly increase as I write this of about 530% in value.
Question might be what happens if the Chinese ban is a permanent ban, will the mining and exchanges just move to some other nation or is this a real and actual blow to the market? Will usage go away or are they just going to try and use some other cryptocurrency besides bitcoin, I'm not quite sure from the article if it's all cryptocurrencies or if its just bitcoins. One would assume this is just the Chinese government trying to assert control of their resources, they could have large problems with money laundering and other fraudulent activities they are trying to crack down on. Question is if it's just a ban or are they sweeping the competition? Lots of national banks are toying with the idea of their own cryptolike or electronic currencies. E-Yuan or whatever they might like to call it if it becomes a reality. If they control it all then it might be a dream from a knowledge standpoint, expect them to be able to follow every little transaction, no anonymity what so ever.