Good news for Bitcoin bugs – BTC China is back in business
Bitcoin bugs received a major boost today when BTC China said that customers would once again be allowed to buy Bitcoin by depositing yuan into the exchange's corporate bank account.
Bobby Lee, CEO of BTC China told CNBC:
Everything is hunky dory.
Essentially the government never disallowed it.
The world's largest Bitcoin exchange decided to stop accepting trades denominated in yuan in the wake of the People's Bank of China's (PBoC) crackdown on the digital currency.
In December, the PBoC announced a ban on financial institutions handling Bitcoin transactions. The central bank declared that Bitcoin was a currency without “real meaning.” The move came shortly after China became the world's largest trader of the virtual currency.
In the interim BTC China customers were able use vouchers to redeem their cash, changing their Bitcoin's back into yuan.
The company's announcement came just ahead of the start to the Lunar New Year holiday period and also marked the PBoC's deadline by which payment processors were expected to halt all Bitcoin transactions.
The announcement will be welcome news to Bitcoin enthusiasts who have endured clampdowns on the cryptocurrency from Norway to Thailand.
BTC China revisited its decision to close down its service after it concluded that the PBoC's instructions were only for banks and payment processors.
Lee told CNBC that the PBoC was implying that Bitcoin exchanges needed to register with the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.