Breaking: Bitcoin Exchanges Held to ‘Closed-Door’ Meeting with China’s Central Bank

The People’s Bank of China, the country’s central bank, is continuing its involvement in looking into bitcoin exchanges’ activities in the country by holding a ‘closed-door’ meeting with domestic bitcoin exchanges.

According to a Bloomberg report, PBOC officials are meeting representatives from a number of regional bitcoin exchanges in a private meeting on Wednesday afternoon, local time.

The publication’s source points to money laundering as one of several topics on the agenda in the closed-doors meeting.

The PBOC has publicly revealed its involvement and several ‘on-site inspections’ for a little over a month now, when bitcoin prices reached gold parity and pushed toward an all-time high. Details are scarce, but today’s reported private meeting prolongs the PBOC’s involvement in wielding its authority as the country’s financial regulator at a time when capital outflows are at record highs in the face of a falling yuan.

The PBOC first announced that it had met representatives from BTCChina, Huobi and OKCoin, the three major bitcoin trading platforms in the country, on January 6^th. The apex bank cited “abnormal price fluctuations” as a factor for its intervention while stating its intention “to guard against risks and maintain financial stability.”

Bitcoin fell nearly 4,000 CNY (approx. $300) as news and speculation of the PBOC’s involvement spread.

Within a week, the PBOC confirmed “on-site checks” of the three exchanges in Beijing and Shanghai, further accelerating bitcoin’s downward spiral at the time to strike a low of $790 that day, losing over 14% in value.

Soon after, the three exchanges quickly pulled the plug on margin trading for Chinese investors unofficially, before a formal announcement followed. On January 24^th, the bitcoin exchanges began charging trading fees at a flat 0.2 percent per transaction to bring an end to zero-fee trading. Upon enforcement, bitcoin trading volumes saw a steep fall in the country.

Following today’s news, bitcoin prices were impacted minimally in China. Trading at BTCChina saw BTC/CNY reach a high of 7,545 CNY ($1096.85) for the day before falling to 7,150 CNY ($1,039.43). At the time of publishing, bitcoin price has since bounced back toward 7,350 CNY ($1,068) losing approximately 2.5% in value.

Image from Shutterstock. Chart from BitcoinWisdom.

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