Bitcoin value takes a 10 percent hit from Chinese crackdown

Business & Technology

Top business and technology news for February 10, 2017. Part of the daily The China Projectย news roundup "The phone call: Trump acquiesces on One China Policy."

FILE PHOTO: Bitcoin (virtual currency) coins are seen in an illustration picture taken at La Maison du Bitcoin in Paris, France, May 27, 2015. REUTERS/Benoit Tessier/File Photo - RTX2YBYD

  • Bitcoin trading shrivels under Chinese governmentโ€™s glareย / Reuters
    As a result of Chinaโ€™s determination to regulate the Bitcoin exchange market, the number of Bitcoins traded on BTCC, Huobi, and OKCoin โ€” the three main exchange platforms for the digital currency in China โ€” dropped significantly from 13.6 million on January 6 to around 120,000 on February 9. In January, the Peopleโ€™s Bank of China (PBoC) announced that it has started a wider and deeper scrutiny into major Bitcoin exchanges and held meetingsย with nine of them. This led to a temporary month-long suspension of Bitcoin withdrawal on major exchange platforms. China has been the worldโ€™s leading venue for Bitcoin trading and mining, with the big three taking up more than 90 percent of the global Bitcoin market as of January 11. For more on the status of Bitcoin in China, see this The China Projectย Q&A with Eric Mu, a Chinese entrepreneur who runs a Bitcoin mining facility and believes that โ€œBitcoin has outgrown the stage where a single government can profoundly affect its development.โ€
  • Chinaโ€™s stock market regulator vows to โ€˜captureโ€™ more tycoonsย / SCMP
    Liu Shiyu, chairman of China Securities Regulatory Commission, said in an annual work meeting on Friday that China wonโ€™t tolerate any โ€œcapital market crocodilesโ€ฆskinning or sucking the blood of retail investorsโ€ and vowed to bring them back to the mainland to face justice. Liuโ€™s comments highlighted a prolonged efforts by Chinese authorities to crack down on market manipulators and more tightly regulate the stock markets. Last month, Xu Xiang ๅพ็ฟ”, once considered Chinaโ€™s top hedge fund manager, was sentenced to prisonย for five and and a half years for stock manipulation and insider trading. A week later, billionaire Xiao Jianhua ่‚–ๅปบๅŽ, the chairman of Tomorrow Group, went missingย in his apartment in Hong Kong, apparently in connection with corruption investigations by mainland authorities.