Bitcoin price has fully recovered since the temporary Bitcoin withdrawal suspension on Huobi and OKCoin traders, having increased from $980 to $1,123 within two weeks.
On Jan. 18, Huobi and OKCoin were requested by the People’s Bank of China (PBoC) to overhaul their know your customer, hereinafter KYC, and anti-money laundering, hereinafter AML, regulation. Local publications including the Shanghai Observer reported that the PBoC told the two exchanges they were in violation of local regulations and failed to meet industry-wide standards.
Three weeks after the PBoC made its initial request to Huobi and OKCoin for a KYC and AML system upgrade, OKCoin and Huobi officially suspended Bitcoin and Litecoin withdrawals for one month. Depending on the upgrade, the two exchanges stated that the suspension could either be cleared before the one month period or could potentially last longer than the original one-month timeline.
On Feb. 9, when Huobi and OKCoin released their official statements, Bitcoin price plunged overnight from $1,054 to $988. While the Chinese market showed resilience to the PBoC-OKCoin and Huobi controversy at first, the US market and its leading exchange such as Bitfinex and Kraken began to demonstrate the rapid resurgence of panic sellers and traders.
Since then, Bitcoin price has continued to recover and is very close to reaching its all-time high price. Bitcoin has already surpassed this year’s all-time high price established in late January. Although the Bitcoin price recovery can be attributed to the exponential growth of the Japanese Bitcoin exchange market, Cointelegraph revealed that peer-to-peer Bitcoin trading has been on the rise.
Almost immediately after withdrawals on Huobi and OKCoin were disabled, LocalBitcoins China trading volumes began to surge, surpassing all-time high trading values at $5.8 mln weekly trading volume.
Today, Bitcoin price officially hit its third highest weighted average price, surpassing this year’s peak. Based on the current price trend, Bitcoin price is presumed to increase if no major events that could potentially lead to the demise of Bitcoin’s value emerge in upcoming weeks.
Bitcoin exchanges including major Chinese trading platform BTCC are already celebrating Bitcoin’s highest rally since the beginning of 2017.