“All” Chinese virtual currency exchanges must stop trading to remain compliant, regulators have announced.
Information slowly appearing from China appears to confirm that trading will no longer be legal for Bitcoin-to-fiat platforms.
Bitcoin prices are already reacting, with 24-hour losses approaching 21% at $3000.
Cryptocurrency CEOs have reacted to BTCChina and now other exchanges shutting down with firm plans for the future.
Speaking in emailed comments, several industry players said that while markets were reacting harshly to Chinese regulatory moves, the long-term benefits for Bitcoin’s ethos and therefore stability were clear.
“The price is always a solid metric of the markets’ greed and fear, and reflects regulatory uncertainty at the moment,” Leverj CEO Bharath Rao commented.
“This also signals that development of non-custodial and decentralized models will accelerate.”
“Regulation is neither necessary nor possible for decentralized models, and the future may have gotten just a bit brighter by nudging the crypto community to develop high speed, non-custodial exchanges.”
Chinese investors became notorious for their short-term trading activities, which often influenced Bitcoin volatility in the past. The latest regulatory warnings produced a second mass exodus to p2p trading platforms such as Localbitcoins this year.
With sanctioned Bitcoin-to-fiat trading looking to stop in China altogether, an major market influence will disappear, but this may not be the case forever.
“China is practically building a cottage industry for mining and exchanging bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, so it is hard to believe that they intend to exit a market with so much potential upside,” Jason English of Blockchain alliance Sweetbridge continued.
“Even the apparent ban on ICOs seemed to be more of a stopgap in order to get some policies in place. If anything, this example shows the volatility of the space and that some market-makers can likely take advantage of an unclear news cycle to create a sell-off and buy back opportunity.”