By
Steve Muchoki
April 19th, 2024
The People’s Bank of China explained that it would begin blacklisting exchanges that would continue violating the regulations.
BTC China, Huobi and OKCoin, Chinese leading Bitcoin exchanges, have extended a self-imposed moratorium on all coin withdrawals and said in separate statements that the suspension will continue unless regulators approve internal compliance upgrades.
Thus, the game between Bitcoin exchanges and the PBOC is going ahead while some clarity finally appears.
According to Zhou Xuedong, director of the PBOC’s Business Administration unit, the regulator would “adopt a forgiving attitude” toward domestic bitcoin exchanges for now as well as would set an “observation period” to give them time to adapt to financial regulations.
Reportedly, the PBOC would begin blacklisting exchanges that fail to correct any infringements. The list of violations that would cause an exchange to be blacklisted includes:
- Offering leverage and margin trades
- Artificially inflating trading volumes by not charging fees on bitcoin trades
- Violating anti-money laundering (AML) or foreign exchange laws
- Allowing customers to substitute bitcoin for fiat currency to purchase goods
- Tax evasion
- False advertising and participating in Ponzi schemes
- Offering credit, securities, and futures trading without an appropriate license
The fact that the PBOC made clear what constitutes an infringement can be a first move toward the creation of clearer regulatory environment. The implementation of an official regulatory framework for Bitcoin exchanges, perhaps followed even by the creation of a specific license for these players, can be the next step.
Bitcoin, that last week exceeded the value of an ounce of gold for the first time ever, came to the attention of Chinese authorities as they are eager to prevent money laundering and capital flight. Xuedong stated that the introduced Bitcoin regulation isn’t temporary.
Meanwhile, tomorrow the SEC will make a final decision concerning the approval of Winklevoss twins’ Bitcoin ETF COIN. The SEC pays much attention to the insights of outside counsel, independent consultants and the public.
Last month, the organizations and officials related to the approval of the Winklevoss twins’ Bitcoin ETF brought together in a roundtable discussion concerning the future of the ETF focusing on possible market reaction on the approval as well as potential issues and benefits of the public for having a Bitcoin ETF readily available.
According to the statistics, the majority of involved people tend to believe in the approval of the Bitcoin ETF. Opinions are divided as 72 percent of those who vote for the approval to 28 percent of those who oppose. This minority has mentioned some of the issues the Bitcoin network is dealing with. But taking into consideration the current state of the Bitcoin network, the problems aren’t necessarily urgent issues which the SEC should consider for the ETF approval.