BEIJING – The Chinese regulators have announced that all cryptocurrency exchanges operating in the country must stop trading by September 30th to remain compliant, giving a huge blow to the booming Bitcoin.
China, tipped to be the next world leader in terms of its economy, had already hinted at banning all the cryptocurrency exchanges and today it has given an ultimatum to the exchanges to halt these services.
One of the largest bitcoin exchanges BTCC and ViaBTC have announced closing down operations across the country.
BTCC, in the wake of the announcement, posted a series of tweets about user withdrawals, stating that they will be able to get their money out even after the September 30 closure date,however, the exchange suggested that users “withdraw their funds as quickly as possible.”
https://twitter.com/YourBTCC/status/908647813491318785
Soon after the announcement, cryptocurrency market lost billions of dollars. Currently, the value of a Bitcoin stands around $3000 which is the lowest value it has achieved in the past few weeks.
Bitcoin, which is not backed by any government, quadrupled in value from December to September but the recent embargo by China has set the tongues wagging whether the skyrocketing value would witness a smooth trend or sail through the crisis.
Jason English of Blockchain alliance Sweetbridge while reacting to the news expressed that China was practically building a cottage industry for mining and exchanging bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.
“So it is hard to believe that they intend to exit a market with so much potential upside” he assured.
China is one of the biggest cryptocurrency markets and it accounts for 23% of the Bitcoin trades.
Prior to going hard against Bitcoin, China also banned Initial Coin Offerings in the country which emerged as an alternate yet very effective way for startups to fund themselves.
— Luna Lin (@LunaLinCN) September 15, 2017
Via: Techjuice
