By
Chimamanda U. Martha
April 24th, 2024
Bitcoin has been hit once again by the Chinese regulatory hammer as the crackdown gets stronger, due to the warnings issued by People’s Bank of China.
Along with growing doubts about the further continuity of the operations, the heads of the top five bitcoin exchanges in China cancelled their appearances at Global Bitcoin Summit that is held this weekend.
After banks forced most of these exchanges to shut down accounts related to bitcoin activity, all five exchanges – OKCoin, Huobi, BTC China, BtcTrade and CHBT stated on Tuesday that they would not any longer participate in bitcoin conferences.
At present, Sina Tech’s new report suggests major exchange Huobi based in the capital of China may be looking for repositioning of its company’s services in response to the measures.
Huobi co-founder Jun Du offered that the company is thinking about an idea to use its exchange platform as a bitcoin marketplace and price aggregator for digital currency traders.
Mr. Du told Sina Tech that users would organize their own online chatroom group via a popular tool given by Tencent, the tech giant.
Both buyers and sellers from the group would be able to exchange bitcoin or recharge codes for Chinese currency, moreover the interactions of the users are made independently of the exchanges.
Mr. Du mentioned that Huobi exchange must manage the transition of bitcoin to fiat money: “What we are most focused on is the inflow of [fiat] monies.”
Furthermore, among all the exchanges Huobi has been the more open one when talking about the repositioning of its business as bitcoin marketplace.
In addition, the company considered to continue its operations overseas. In order to continue as an exchange abroad, Huobi has already registered for overseas incorporation and offshore accounts that would perhaps allow it to continue as an exchange abroad.
Decline in Volume and Activity
Du also noted how exchange got affected by the PBOC regulation policies. Moreover, he said that Huobi lost key business partners and it kept open voucher deposits.
As a result there happened a decrease in the speed of increasing capital by the exchange. Jun Du said that such a loss in total resulted in a %10 decline in user activity.
Further, according to Du’s estimations the prices declined by 30% across all Chinese exchanges in this month.
Uneven Enforcement
The report also says that due to Huobi’s location in Beijing the company may have been more affected by the PBOC policies.
Sina Tech specifies that Shanghai-based BTC China has been “under far less pressure”, agreeing to close accounts as it was requested by the banks.
Bobby Lee, the CEO of BTC China, has been outspoken about the ongoing regulatory issues in China, moving to calm international fears amid fears that the country would act aggressively against domestic exchanges.
However, it is facing increased setbacks too. On 6th May, BTC China announced it would suspend RMB deposits from the Bank of China.
“Dear users, Due to regulations, we have suspended CNY deposits from Bank of China. For further enquiries, pls email: support@btcchina.com,” BTC China tweeted yesterday.