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Bitcoin Exchange Value Halves After Chinese Ban

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the newton's-law-of-should-have-gotten-out-last-week dept.

An anonymous reader writes with news of the latest major fluctuation in the price people are willing to pay for Bitcoins. From the article: "China's ban on its financial institutions handling bitcoin causes world's largest exchange to cease trading, halving the value of the currency from $1,000 to less than $500 in a matter of days. The country's central bank took a hard line on Bitcoin in early December when it banned financial institutions from handling the decentralized crypto-currency, and as a result BTC China, the world's largest bitcoin exchange, has stopped accepting deposits from its users." Just watch that line trend downward.

2 of 475 comments (clear)

  1. Crypto COMMODITY by brunes69 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I wish people would stop calling these "crypto-currencies", because it is a total misrepresentation of what these things are. They are crypto-commodities. BTC is just like gold right now - it is not used to transact, it is used as a value store - except it is much worse as a value store because it is orders of magnitude more volatile. No one can use BTC as a currency because its value fluxuates so wildly. Everyone who is SUPPOSEDLY using it as a currency just has it pegged to the US dollar with a live update.

  2. Re:profit by Clent · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I bought $20 USD worth of bitcoins, back when that bought more than one. Around the peak, located conveniently around the same time as black friday, I sold a fraction of one coin for a $250 USD Amazon gift card. The fee was in bitcoins and was (at the time) equivalent to less than $5 USD, I think it was closer to $2.50 USD. The process was not immediate but it took less than 4 hours. When I originally purchased bitcoin, getting it back to USD like this wasn't an option.