Bitcoin markets have been roiled dramatically in the past two weeks by actions of the PBOC. Initial notice on December 5 stating that financial institutions would not be allowed to transact in bitcoin were followed by rumors that payment processors would no longer be able to serve bitcoin exchanges, which have since been validated. The result has been not only a dramatic drop in exchange rates – from $650 to as low as $400 earlier today – but also an historic spread between USD and CNY markets, reaching upwards of 30% this morning. This morning, BTC China and OKCoin temporarily …
Read More →
Bitcoin suffered a roughly 30% drop before recovering somewhat yesterday after word hit the market indicating Chinese regulators would no longer allow payment processors to serve bitcoin exchanges. Doubts about the validity of such statements have increased since their announcement, with little official word seen yet from regulators or payment companies. Incidentally, at least two of the largest CNY exchanges happened to drop their zero-fee trading on the same day, offering initial insight into how much free trading was bolstering the recent Chinese market presence. Yesterday morning, reports began surfacing on Chinese microblogging sites indicating the country’s top payment processing companies …
Read More →
The last week has seen dramatic upwards price action in the bitcoin markets, driven by a series of macro and micro events across the globe. The fallout from Silk Road’s closure turned out to be but a blip in bitcoin’s price history, with significant gains since then. Turmoil in global financial markets and recent news of leading global websites accepting bitcoin may have bolstered enthusiasm for digital currency, but most interesting may be CNY’s definitive recent price leadership. Compared with prices before the brief Silk Road drop, bitcoin exchange rates have climbed 14% in the last two weeks. At $145/BTC …
Read More →
Since the beginning of this year, China has played an increasingly important role in the digital currency universe. After state-run CCTV ran a documentary about bitcoin in May, Chinese adoption grew dramatically. At the time it was unknown whether the interest spike would be a mere blip in bitcoin’s history or a trend that would continue into the future. Since beginning the year at just over one percent of total bitcoin trading volume, CNY trading has recently ballooned to 10% of the total market, claiming the title of second largest bitcoin trading volume for 13 out of 23 days so …
Read More →
Last month we showed the initial impact after Chinese state-run broadcaster CCTV ran a piece about bitcoin. The Chinese presence in bitcoin has continued to accelerate since then, even as the rest of the world tempered its rate of adoption. In May, China surpassed the previously-dominant US in number of monthly bitcoin downloads, with 85K compared to 64K in the US. Not only did China climb it’s way to the top spot for the first time, but it was also the only country out of the top 10 highest all-time downloading nations to increase the number of monthly downloads in May. For …
Read More →