Last January, transaction volume of BTC in China had significantly slowed down due to efforts from the Chinese government to control the cryptocurrency. The People's Bank of China (PBoC) was growing frustrated due to the ease of cross-border flows of funds with BTC; they saw this as a threat to the value of the Yuan, and they believed it could cause their foreign currency reserves to shrink. So they took action; margin trading was no longer allowed, and fund withdrawals by investors had been suspended. Naturally, trading plummeted, but with BTC continuing to look like a stronger long term investment, trade volume continues to steadily recover.
Unfortunately, the PBoC's fears of BTC and other cryptocurrencies has not subsided. The Director of the PBoC’s business management department, Xuedong Zhou, recently said that the Chinese exchanges are going to be banned from providing leveraged trading, financing, and officially banning margin trading services. According to Zhou, the PBoC may also discourage the exchanges from waiving transaction fees.
It is unclear how exactly these changes would affect the cryptocurrency market, but some turbulence would be expected.
Just a little heads up I thought I'd share. Thanks for reading!
