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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: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 17 2017, @11:24PM (1 child)
Meanwhile back in the real world, several exchanges are working furiously to add Chinese translations to their site, hire Chinese speaking support personnel and find other ways to give the finger to the Chinese govt while inviting the Chinese people to move to better money.
https://www.tradeqwik.com/ [tradeqwik.com] is one exchange that has officially announced plans to Sinoize at all levels in order to turn this crisis into new found faithful customers.
They have announced plans to create an uncensorable peer to peer trading platform specifically to get around the great firewall. They will also give their users debit cards they can use to spend their crypto currency at any place that takes major credit cards.
I know it sounds like an ad, but the truth is these kinds of so called problems are always business opportunities in disguise and even though TQ is the only exchange I know of that has announced their plans, I'm certain many other exchanges are working on similar solutions.
At the end of the day, Money is just speech, it is just a type of information and information cannot truly be constrained, information wants to be free.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 18 2017, @01:49AM
Do they accept Yuan? Do you have to mail it to them? You know China has restrictions on sending money out of the country.
The funny bit is where you think they will be able to use debit cards without the Chinese government knowing about it, and declaring them illegal.