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China plans to ban trading of bitcoin and other virtual currencies on domestic exchanges, dealing another blow to the $150 billion cryptocurrency market after the country outlawed initial coin offerings last week.<\/p>\n
The ban will only apply to trading of cryptocurrencies on exchanges, according to people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be named because the information is private. Authorities don\u2019t have plans to stop over-the-counter transactions, the people said.<\/p>\n
China\u2019s central bank said it couldn\u2019t immediately comment.<\/p>\n
Bitcoin slumped on Friday after Caixin magazine reported China\u2019s plans, capping the virtual currency\u2019s biggest weekly retreat in nearly two months. The country accounts for about 23% of bitcoin trades and is also home to many of the world\u2019s biggest bitcoin miners, who use vast amounts of computing power to confirm transactions in the digital currency.<\/p>\n
\u201cTrading volume would definitely shrink,\u201d said Zhou Shuoji, Beijing-based founding partner at FBG Capital, which invests in cryptocurrencies. \u201cOld users will definitely still trade, but the entry threshold for new users is now very high. This will definitely slow the development of cryptocurrencies in China.\u201d<\/p>\n
While Beijing\u2019s motivation for the exchange ban is unclear, it comes amid a broad clampdown on financial risk in the run-up to a key Communist Party leadership reshuffle next month. Bitcoin has jumped about 600% in dollar terms over the past year, fueling concerns of a bubble.<\/p>\n
The People\u2019s Bank of China has done trial runs of its own prototype cryptocurrency, taking it a step closer to being the first major central bank to issue digital money.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere has been a general tightening of the screw on regulating financial and monetary conditions,\u201d said Mark McFarland, chief economist at Union Bancaire Privee SA HK in Hong Kong. \u201cAll of these things suggest a longer term process of tightening scrutiny of activities that aren\u2019t in the normal sort of monetary realm.\u201d<\/p>\n
OKCoin, BTC China and Huobi, the country\u2019s three biggest bitcoin exchanges, said on Monday that they hadn\u2019t received any regulatory notices concerning bans on cryptocurrency trading. All three venues reported transactions on Monday, with bitcoin rising 6.3% on OKCoin as of 11:56 a.m. local time.<\/p>\n
While bitcoin users will still be able to trade cryptocurrencies in China without exchanges, the process is likely to be slower and come with increased credit risk, analysts said.<\/p>\n
The exchange ban is unlikely to have a major impact on the prices of cryptocurrencies globally because venues outside China will continue trading, according to FBG Capital\u2019s Zhou. The country\u2019s role in the bitcoin market had already started shrinking in recent months as authorities tightened regulation.<\/p>\n
At one point, exchanges in China accounted for more than 90% of the world\u2019s bitcoin transactions.<\/p>\n
The bigger risk for global traders may be the massive rally in bitcoin prices, according to McFarland.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhenever you start to hear about Hong Kong taxi drivers becoming millionaires from buying bitcoin, you start to think this is not necessarily driven by fundamentals,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo you will get quite substantial pullbacks at some point.\u201d<\/p>\n
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