Great news, but let's take it with a grain of salt. This is Joseph Young posting at The Merkle, not any official news source. The story he is citing is this one from
Bitcoin.com:
Following the rumors and hearsay, China’s National Internet Finance Association (NIFA) announced that exchanges dealing with cryptocurrency and ICOs had received many warnings in the past. NIFA states that any exchange operating in China currently has “no legal” authority to operate a virtual currency business at the moment.
“So-called “currency” trading platforms in China are not legally established,” reveals NIFA’s statement on September 13.
China’s regional media sources also confirm that exchanges will face stricter regulatory scrutiny, but claim that bitcoin is not banned nationwide. According to the reports, the next step will be strengthening cryptocurrency exchange supervision while also emphasizing that ICOs are still forbidden. One report explains regulators are merely “removing fraudulent projects without actual content.” However, even though some local reports state bitcoin exchanges will face more regulatory challenges they still may have to cease operations in the meantime.
...
An anonymous source told The Wall Street Journal that domestic cryptocurrency trading platforms will soon be closed down. The sources explained that regulatory officials were cryptic detailing the situation and would not reveal when the alleged exchange shut down would happen. “Too much disorder was naturally a basic reason” to stop cryptocurrency operations explained the news outlets’ source.
For now, every major Chinese cryptocurrency exchange is still operating, and the public doesn’t know if they will have to close down. Moreover, if exchanges are asked to close, then the trading platforms may have to get licensed before resuming financial operations.
The NIFA statement does not seem conclusive to me. It seems likely, all taken, that the exchanges will face additional scrutiny and a licensing regime will be developed. The question in that case is, will they be required to shut down in the meantime?
Anyway, now that the market has already dropped so much, I'm no longer sweating this. The damage is done. In "disaster trading" the rule is: sell the rumor, buy the news.
