China's top three Bitcoin exchange platforms have announced plans to freeze all withdrawals following harsher regulations from China's Central Bank.
The three exchanges, also known as "The Big Three," are BTCC, Huobi, and OKCoin, the country's biggest Bitcoin trading platforms.
After earlier this week Huobi and OKCoin announced they suspended all Bitcoin and Litecoin withdrawals for a month, yesterday, BTCC, the last one standing, announced the same via a message on its homepage.
BTCC says the reason for its actions is the new "inspection and verification system," which it will implement at the behest of Chinese authorities.
Starting with January 2016, the People's Bank of China introduced harsher regulations for crypto-currencies, aimed at countering money laundering.
The new "inspection and verification system," which Chinese traders are currently implementing, is meant to ensure that no person buys and moves a foreign currency over a limit of $50,000.
The central bank also started investigations into the practices of several Bitcoin trading platforms that were offering too-good-to-be-true offers, such as zero-trading fees.
Chinese users moving to international traders
Ever since authorities have cracked down on the local Bitcoin traders, Chinese Bitcoin users have moved operations overseas.
Coindesk, a cryptocurrency-centered news portal, points to a virtual exodus of Chinese users to other traders, with trading activity visibly going down at The Big Three.
Bitcoin price has remained stable during the past week, despite the ominous news from the three Bitcoin traders. Many experts viewed this as strange, since Chinese traders and miners take up a large portion of the Bitcoin ecosystem, and the gloomy news should have impacted Bitcoin price in some way or another.
The full BTCC announcement is embedded below:
BTCChina will continue upgrading its inspection and verification system for bitcoin and Litecoin withdrawals to aggressively guard against money laundering, illegal money exchange, pyramid schemes, and other illegal activity.
As a result, Bitcoin and Litecoin withdrawals will be suspended from February 15th until March 15th. Bitcoin and Litecoin withdrawals will be resumed as soon as industry standards are settled and the inspection and verification system has been upgraded.
Please note:
1. Bitcoin and Litecoin withdrawals will resume as soon the inspection and verification system has been upgraded. We will let customers know as soon as this happens.
2. CNY deposits and withdrawals will not be affected; if customers want to withdraw funds within a shorter period, they can first trade their Bitcoins and Litecoins for CNY on the exchange and then withdraw the CNY.
We apologize for any inconvenience caused.Thank you for your cooperation and understanding,
The BTCChina Team
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