China Is Said to Ban Bitcoin Exchanges While Allowing OTC

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"Trading volume would definitely shrink," said Zhou Shuoji, Beijing-based founding partner at FBG Capital, which invests in cryptocurrencies. "Old users will definitely still trade, but the entry threshold for new users is now very high. This will definitely slow the development of cryptocurrencies in China."

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While Beijing's motivation for the exchange ban is unclear, it comes amid a broad clampdown on financial risk in the run-up to a key Communist Party leadership reshuffle next month. Bitcoin has jumped about 600 percent in dollar terms over the past year, fueling concerns of a bubble. The People's Bank of China has done trial runs of its own prototype cryptocurrency, taking it a step closer to being the first major central bank to issue digital money.

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OKCoin, BTC China and Huobi, the country's three biggest bitcoin exchanges, said on Monday that they hadn't received any regulatory notices concerning bans on cryptocurrency trading. All three venues reported transactions on Monday, with bitcoin rising 7.6 percent on OKCoin as of 5:09 p.m. local time.