
China Central Bank Said to Call Bitcoin Exchanges for Talks - petethomas
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-02-08/china-central-bank-said-to-call-bitcoin-exchanges-for-more-talks
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Animats
China has export controls on money transfer, but they leak. They're not
intended to be airtight; anyone in China can take about $50K in yuan to Hong
Kong once a month and exchange it for euros or dollars. (Sending all your
relatives to Hong Kong once a month to do this is a thing.) A big question for
the last year was whether the PBOC was going to loosen or tighten exchange
controls. Around the end of November, the decision came out: tighten.[1] Too
much money is fleeing China. China flight capital drove the London and
Vancover real estate booms, among other things. The PBOC wants to slow down
the money drain.

Bitcoin is one of the leaks. It looks like the PBOC is taking a harder look at
Bitcoin exchanges. It's a way to convert yuan to dollars or euros. Buy Bitcoin
in China with yuan, sell elsewhere for dollars and euros. This is currently
the main use case for Bitcoin. (Face it, retail use of Bitcoin went nowhere.)

[1] [https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/29/business/economy/china-
ti...](https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/29/business/economy/china-tightens-
controls-on-overseas-use-of-its-currency.html)

~~~
drcode
> This is currently the main use case for Bitcoin.

While this is a reasonable possibility, there is very little hard data to
confirm that the use of Bitcoin being used in a significant way to circumvent
Chinese capital controls... the evidence for this is very circumstantial.

~~~
Animats
Forbes says it's being used that way.[1]

[1]
[http://www.forbes.com/sites/laurashin/2017/01/05/the-2-facto...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/laurashin/2017/01/05/the-2-factors-
that-drove-bitcoins-20-overnight-price-plunge/#7a61f91f563c)

~~~
random_rr
Well... Lauren Shin says it's being used that way.

Please note that she is a Forbes Contributor - a blogger, in other words.

> Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.

~~~
moomin
I'll observe that the number of capital control circumvention mechanisms for
which there is hard evidence can be counted in zeros. If you can prove it, so
can the government, and then they can either sue, lock you up or legislate,
depending on mood. And then you're back to zero again.

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imkevinxu
Unnecessary FUD. Caused a 4% drop exactly when the article posted [0] but it's
already back up to where it was. Bitcoin is a lot more stable now.

[0] [http://bitcoinity.org/markets](http://bitcoinity.org/markets)

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maxander
That China has decided to talk with them rather than squashing all Bitcoin
traffic outright is best sign I've seen for Bitcoin in awhile.

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djsumdog
Kinda makes me think of how you can increase the quality of vodka by running
it through standard charcoal water filters (I think there was a mythbusters on
this).

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hipster_logic
Bitcoin is a great / secure method to store wealth. It makes sense that
Chinese citizens are buying it in order to keep it away from an overreaching
government.

