Thursday, July 10, 2014

Despite Banking Ban, Bitcoin Ecommerce Sites Emerging in China

December 2013, the ground of the Bitcoin world was falling through. After a strong rally spanning over a month, precipitated by rumors that the Chinese central bank was to issue a ban, the prices nosedived. Fueling the panic, some of the big names in the Chinese Internet industry washed their hands. Jiasule, a subsidiary of Internet search giant Baidu removed the “Bitcoin accepted” sign from its website; Taobao, China’s biggest marketplace owned by Alibaba, threatened to punish its venders for receiving or selling Bitcoins on the platform. As such signals increased, more scared new converts jumped off the bandwagon.

Will Bitcoin ever going to recover from a setback of that magnitude? – That was the question that many Chinese Bitcoiners asked themselves back in the day. Now, half a year later – which is a long time when it comes to Bitcoin, although nobody can’t say with certainty that Bitcoin is sound and healthy, we can at least take a sign of relief: Exchange rates, though never returned to the euphoric November levels, has stabilised 1/3 higher than the half year low. Other than pure price movements, progress has been made in terms of real world use: While the established Chinese e-commerce websites had yet given their blessings to the currency, the gap has been filled by an emerging new breed of services.

No comments: