While China has taken us to the Moon, it's starting to become dead-weight that's holding back the BTC market. There are many competing conspiracy theories on the Chinese market manipulation, including exchanges collaborating with government officials in what is typically considered insider trading.
In the end, none of this matters because with the latest round of news, China has really banned bitcoin. Yes, the PBOC governor recently said, “It is out of the question of banning bitcoin as it is not started by a central bank.” But read between the lines: nobody is allowed to recharge their account or fiat deposit exchanges.
There seems to be confusion in the Western world about what is being said in China, and what it actually means. Once again: read between the lines. As someone from the Eastern Asian culture living in a Western society, this was obvious as daylight.
In China, direct confrontation is discouraged, as it disrupt "harmony" in social order, and that "saving face" is valued. In Eastern Asian culture, it's never about what someone says, it's about what they do, and this is often very two-faced in the fact that they say one thing and does another. In other words, watch what the Chinese do, never what they say.
zhangweiwu does a perfect job of explaining the PBOC stance on BTC in China:
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/the-china-pboc-event-explained-540358
China is really trying to kill bitcoin while making a profit off it. Even the exchange CEO in china, who claims that "business will go on as usual" is guilty of this two-faced approach to crisis as well. The lie is built their culture, it literally permeates their exchange with the fake volume, and everytime BitStamp follows Huobi, I see it as the Western world being led by the nose right into the Chinese slaughterhouse. Pure manipulation.
You didn't think for a second that a country featuring a repressive regime with one of the worst human rights records in history was going to let a freedom-promoting Western technology created by some Japanese pseudonym live did you?
So China banned bitcoin. That's great. Google, Facebook, Amazon, Twitter, and virtually all of Internet 2.0 doesn't need China, and neither does bitcoin. Once bitcoin reaches $5,000, you're going to see a lot of angry Chinese speculators who missed the train because they followed the Confucian order of obeying a bunch of senile old men.
I for one, am glad that China made itself clear on this move, that its intention was clear: no more bitcoin trading. No more passive-aggressive bans, less weak-handed speculation, and one less group of fumbling old men with any sway over our newest global currency.
I hope for the Chinese people's sake, that their black market is robust enough to support those who wants to continue investing in BTC, because the train is leaving that station and heading straight for Wall Street.
