China Prepares To Impose Curbs, “Capital Controls” On Bitcoin

Last September, when we predicted that Chinese consumers, investors and savers would flock to bitcoin as a medium of facilitating capital outflows (it was trading at $230 then, it is now three times higher), we also warned that bitcoin’s upside would ultimately be capped by Beijing, when China’s authorities realized how the digital currency was being used to bypass capital controls, and launch a crackdown on bitcoin, as they have with most other capital outflow measures .
It appears that the time has come because, as Bloomberg reports, China’s regulators are studying measures to limit transactions that use bitcoins to take funds out of the country, citing people familiar with the matter.
According to Bloomberg sources, Chinese officials are considering policies including restricting domestic bitcoin exchanges from moving the cryptocurrency to platforms outside the nation and imposing quotas on the amount of bitcoins that can be sent abroad. Further indicating that Chinese regulators were “just a little behind the curve”, they allegedly noticed only recently that some investors bought bitcoins on local exchanges and sold them offshore, evading rules on foreign exchange and cross-border fund flows, the report further reveals.

This post was published at Zero Hedge on Nov 3, 2016.