I believe that this ban is just a temporary decision. Here's why:
1) There are lots of fraud activities in cryptocurrency at this moment and to be able to protect people from this fraud government should decide how to regulate this new industry.
Cryptocurrency industry scaling speed is way too fast at the moment and demands fast decisions.
On the other hand, China doesn't want to make fast decisions concerning market on which they really want to be a leader.
So this is just a "STOP, THINK, DECIDE" measure being implemented;
2) I think China also understands, that there is no way to be a leader on such digitalized and decentralized market with forbidding everything strategy.
On the contrary, as a government you have to make comfortable conditions including smart regulation measures for your industry leaders to be able to drive this market on local level, especially when your country is a huge part of it.
From my point of view these 2 reasons are enough to make a conclusion that this is a preventive measure and after China will decide what to do they will reform this ban into something much more flexible.
The problem is that by that time this measure will cause some damage and I'm hoping for some official statements in order to stabilize situation, at least I hope there are some industry lobbies in China.
I am on the same opinion as you stated here. I am sure that soon China will come up with their stricter rules for ICO projects especially if the intended market is within China. for now, this news is sending some chills to many but after all the dust has settled we will know for sure the real picture of things.
In that summary posted above, there is no categorical statement that says Bitcoin is already illegal. Now, if Bitcoin cal already be illegal to hold in China then am wondering what will happen to the many miners based in the country?
Now, I am also wondering...is cryptocurrency designed to be independent of the government so why are we affected by this news...and from China at that? Or is this telling us the truth that we can never go away from the government and that government remains to be the King after all?
I have read nowhere that China has any plans regarding bitcoin. It's all just about the fundraising with ICO.
At the stock market, there is a similar pattern: If there are bad news about one corporation it usually affects all the other corporations that are in the same business segment.
Although the others are perfectly doing fine.
I am sure we see something similar here.
By the way, I think the crypto world will benefit if an ICO can not work as it pleases anymore.
This will bring more trust and less disappointment into the world of crypto currencies.