Bitcoin price dropped from $4,100 to $3,018 in a period of three days, as major Chinese exchanges announced their closure. But, as Chinese financial regulators finalized the nationwide ban on exchanges, and gave Huobi and OKcoin an extra month of operation, Bitcoin price rebounded from $3,018 to $3,850. Over the past two days, after its initial surge, Bitcoin price has remained relatively stable at around $3,600.
Currently sitting at $3,911, the BTC price is almost crossing the $4,000 line once again, with over $390 M worth of Bitcoin exchanged in the past 24 hours on the BTC USD pair, which has a 25.66% share of daily volume, second to JPY at 47.12%.
Today, cryptocurrency markets in general are in the green zone. Nearly every single coin on the top 100 has shown gains today as the total cryptocurrency market cap reached $133 B. Popular altcoins such as Ethereum, Litecoin, DASH, BCH, and many others have risen considerably.
China Gives Huobi and Okcoin One Extra Month
The ban on China-based exchanges is to be enforced by the 30th of September. However, Huobi and Okcoin have been granted an extra month of life. Reports from local news outlet Caixin suggest that the two exchanges lack of ICO offerings was one of the factors allowing them to continue operating longer than others. The report states:
“Because the two platforms have large numbers of users and have not performed ICO operations, the relevant departments have given Huobi and Okcoin a one-month buffer period to stay open until the end of October before shutting down.”
Chinese Investors to Trade Bitcoin Over-The-Counter Via Telegram
As Chinese-based bitcoin exchanges plan to shut down, Bitcoin investors are taking their trading elsewhere. They will now focus on broker-facilitated, over-the-counter exchanges. Prior to exchange shutdown notices, most traders conducted OTC exchanges on WeChat messenger. As a result of government crackdowns on Wechat users, investors have made an exodus over to privacy-centric messaging app Telegram. A Quartz article detailed the situation:
The favored app for arranging OTC trades was WeChat, the ubiquitous platform run by Chinese tech giant Tencent. Now brokers are moving to chat platforms operated by non-Chinese companies to keep the trades going, in response to new rules tightening controls on chat groups.”
Coincheck Becomes the First Licensed Japanese Bitcoin Exchange
On September 13, the Japanese Bitcoin trading platform and payment processor, Coincheck, announced the firm had been approved to be a licensed “virtual currency exchange.” After bitcoin was legalized as a form of payment on April 1, 2017, all domestic exchanges in Japan must receive authorization from the treasury department and Financial Services Agency (FSA) to operate a virtual currency exchange business.
At the time Coincheck was extremely pleased to see the Japanese statutes pass and said the “newly made law and regulations on bitcoin are going be enormous.” Further, the exchange revealed at the time that all exchange providers must be approved by the FSA. The Coincheck blog this past June explains:
“In order to make the exchanges more secure, cryptocurrency has been handed over to the authority of the FSA. All the exchange providers and other companies that deal with virtual currency will need to be registered by the FSA before they can start operation. It will help to make cryptocurrency exchanges in Japan tighter, more secure, have scrupulous control.”
Bitcoin is up 11.6% at $3,956.830 with a volume of $108.1k – $402.9M on the USD pairs.
Litecoin is up 14.18% against the dollar for the day at $55.48 and up 1.74% to Ƀ0.01401 on volumes of Ƀ6.7k.
Ether is up 8.72% against Bitcoin at Ƀ0.07441 per Ether and up 21.27% against the dollar to $294.1 with average volume Ƀ26.9k on the ETH/BTC pair.
Dash is up 7.68% at Ƀ0.08570 with Ƀ5.8k volume and up 18.74% against the dollar at $337.09.
Ripple is down 0.14% to Ƀ0.00004881 with volumes of Ƀ3.9k and up 10.82% against the dollar at $0.193.
Zcash is up 3.03% for the day to Ƀ0.04930 per ZEC and up 13.53% against the dollar to $193.7 with an average volume of Ƀ2.4k for the 24 hour period.
Monero is up 11.05% against the dollar at $101.04 and up 0.23% against Bitcoin at Ƀ0.02563 on volumes of Ƀ3.9k.
Ether Classic is up 1.77% to Ƀ0.003044 with volumes of Ƀ1.3k and up 13.6% against the dollar at $12.03.
Waves is down 0.37% to Ƀ0.0009972 on Ƀ803.19 volume.
Stratis is up 1.36% to Ƀ0.001189 on Ƀ702.811 volume.
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