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China Cracks Down On Bitcoin, Cuts Off Exchanges' Bank Access
jfruh (300774) writes "Bitcoin has made many governments and regulators uncomfortable, and the Chinese government is responding to the challenge it poses with its usual lack of subtlety. Two Chinese bitcoin exchanges have found themselves cut off from the money economy, as Chinese banks, under pressure from the government, refuse to do business with them."
with the idea of someone else cutting in on their currency manipulation business. Yuan? You can't have.
...has to do with no reliant on existing financial systems and currency, right? Just 'generate the money' and start using it, don't go back and forth then this will be an non-issue... right?
Anyone keeping coins in an exchange for any longer than necessary to exchange them is an idiot.
Where there is a demand there will be a supply. If not by Chinese bodies then by bodies outside of China's control that supply to the same Chinese people.
I wonder if China will now declare war on bitcoin the same way the US declared was on drugs...the reason I say this is because I;d love for that to happen. The "war on drugs" only made them more readily available.
I agree with the Chinese stance for a number of reasons. Among them, all currency should be traceable so that governments can, if necessary, know who is buying what, where and when. Also, mining BitCoin for any significant profit is for the already relatively wealthy as mining rig costs are beyond the means of the people that need money the most. The rich keep getting richer while the poor continue to suffer.
the BiteCon folks wanted to be rebels. let 'em.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
no matter what the news, lots of people on /r/bitcoin and /r/bitcoinmarkets are bullish.
bitcoin must be good if the chineese govt is trying to stop it?
So the 2nd largest economy is taking steps to ban BitCoin? Really...
Can the end be too far away?
Get back in there at once and sell, sell!!
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Nice FUD! Thank you for regurgitating "maybe" crap from coindsk!
World governments are not going to allow you to replace their fiat currency. Period. It is only a matter of time. Right now Bitcoin is a minor annoyance to US banksters, but rest assured, the moment they are convinced that bitcoin is causing a significant drop in their profits, US Regulators will come down on Bitcoin far worse than China ever could.
Well, this is it -- an early test of whether Bitcoin can stand on its own as an underground currency. The crutch of traditional currency exchange has been kicked out from under it. Will the bitcoins currently in China be abandoned? smuggled out? or actually used as money like Satoshi intended?
The CEO of Bitcoin has already decided to ban China as a countermeasure. So who's the fool now?
I see a different possible reason for this than "bad totalitarian government gets scared of loss of control", but my sample size is small so I may be very wrong here. I know some Chinese citizens and they are unusually interested in the stock market and money making schemes. They don't really understand even a little bit how the stock market works, yet they remain convinced that it's easy to invest a pittance and come out rich. It may be simply that the government is tired of dealing with citizens who don't have even the faintest understanding of how markets work and they don't want to see a bunch of dummies investing their life savings into bitcoin and maybe going bust because I guarantee you that if that happens, the same people who lost their money would demand that the government make them whole.
Sure. When people are spending all their money building fake malls and fake cities, that's "totally working".
"Totally working" is undervaluing their currency so that all goods and services that they offer to the US have an inherent built-in 30% discount.
Its not really the low wages that make manufacturing so attractive in China, its this 30% discount on *everything* compared to domestic US manufacture.
If the Chinese government had been unsubtle, the police would have arrested the owners and they'd be doing hard labour in a punishment camp in Tibet right now. Telling banks to stop doing business with them is a very very moderate slap on the wrist for people who've been slightly naughty.
Therefore, by the (faulty) logic you're using, you're just a cow with a keyboard - osu-neko (2604)
There is also the issue of China's monopoly on rare earths. That gives them another price advantage.
Of course, there will be the people who say that China's quality is better, so that's why companies use their factories... but in my experience, if you want quality, there are tons of countries which can do the job right (US makers, Australia, Germany, Sweden, the UK, Canada, Japan, etc.) However, if an importer wants bargain basement prices, and quality isn't that important, then China seems to be the go to guys. Yes, China -can- make good stuff, but usually they are used because of the price advantage.
Yes, as I understand it, the whole point is that BTC are meant to be spent on goods/services, and the recipients can then spend their BTC on the goods/services they need, and so on, without the need to ever convert to or from other currencies except maybe to pay local taxes. In such a world, the exchanges become far less important.
But I don't think we're at the point yet where a community of people buy groceries, gasoline, pay rent and utilities, etc. purely by using BTC. And if the exchanges can't be trusted, the BTC user base may start to degrade to much smaller population of speculators, hoarders, and true believers waiting for a change in the technological or political winds.
At which point you basically have the Flainian Pobble Beads from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which are only exchangeable for other Flainian Pobble Beads...
Koans and fables for the software engineer
Bitcoin is about as important as the Segway. Bitcoin works, and it does what it's supposed to do - allow one-way irrevocable value transfers between anonymous parties. That's a poor basis for practical commerce, although a boon to a broad range of crooks. It's especially bad that over half of Bitcoin exchanges have gone bust, despite the fact that they shouldn't be at financial risk.
It looks like Bitcoin will be around for a while, but it's not growing. The block chain transaction rate now is about what it was a year ago. Like the Segway, Bitcoin is kind of cool, and has niche applications, but it's not changing the world.
And us fiat being exchanged on the sidewalk is any different than irrevocable transfers between anonymous parties?
Yes, the us fiat system (and most govt fiat systems in general) are very poor for practical commerce, although a boon to a broad range of crooks. Those crooks include the fed who can steal your dollars through arbitrarily adding more (Possible with bitcoin but not necessary) to the supply, counterfeiting (which won't be possible for quite some time with bitcoin) and "Oh MY Goodness!" outright scams. Are you serious? LOL
You want to trust your resources with non-professionals? Doesn't matter what currency you're using, bub.
BitCoin is definitely changing and gaining adoption daily. It's ok though, plenty of people have missed out already... even more will miss out on most of the rest.
I want a payment method that is:
- Accepted by a majority of businesses.
- Is reliable and trustworthy and been around for a long time, not a few months in some foreign country, has a phone number/email that I can reach them at and talk to a person.
- Gives me zero liability protection in case fraud, allows me to dispute transactions.
- Rewards me with something in proportion to how much I use it
- Does not require a smart phone or a computer to be handy or with me at all times when I want to use it
- I can use at locally at POS, over the phone, or on the internet
- Give me additional loss, theft, and warranty protection on the everything I buy with it.
- Costs me nothing to obtain it and use it, initially, monthly, or yearly.
- Provides ability to look at old transactions or print out receipts for business or business expense purposes.
Wouldn't something like that be great?
Oh wait, I already have that, an American Express card. Zero fees (no annual fee and I do not maintain a revolving balance so zero interest), In fact, I got $850 check in the mail last year for using it so much.
When bitcoin or anything else even comes anywhere close to that, maybe I'll switch.
Swapping fiat on the street or directly to someone for something is fine, that is about the safest time to use it. Would you mail fiat cash to someone out of your area on Ebay or Craigslist for payment for something? Why not? Would you do it with Bitcoins? Why not? Because you have no idea if they are a crook or not and if you will ever receive your goods and your currency is GONE.
Is that really that hard for you to understand bub?
Communist economies are fake economies.
And just as often, Capitalist economies are as well.
Because Asset Backed Paper Commodities were basically a giant Ponzi scheme where garbage debt was laundered and passed off to other suckers by the very banks who gave out credit like it was candy.
Your example does NOT fit the "Capitalism" moniker.
True Capiltalism abhors ponzi schemes.
True Capitalism does not create money out of thin air.
True Capitalism does not engage in Quantitative Easing.
What America practices is very far from True Capitalism.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
The bank has issued no decision and will not make a decision until April 15th. Although it is highly speculated that the outcome will remain true, it is still.....speculation.