I delivered 2 articles. The recent 2 months's event unfold faster than I thought, that I have to deliver prediction before the 3rd article:
What are the outcomesA strong ban, a national 'illegal exchanges cleanse' action to rule the exchanges outlaw and ask them to settle and stop exchange business before a certain date. If non-PBOC ministries participated, they will consider to also take down a few non-bitcoin exchanges, e.g. underground stock broker, to weaken Bitcoin's publicity and to incriminate Bitcoin by putting it together with other guilty financial schemas.
Condition: 1. the PBOC consider a strong pose in financial sector against shadow baking benifitial or not harmful to other non-Bitcoin measurements they are about to take. After all PBOC's main task is monetary policy, need to weight the message they deliver to the market. 2. Bitcoin exchanges or Bitcoin itself is not weakened in their observation period.
Probability for this condition to be met:
50% likelyThe second on the candidate list is a ban from non-PBOC entity (most likely Ministry of Industry and Information or Ministry of Commerce) for any commercial activities related to Bitcoin - this second possibility won't happen in May, because one weak ban after anther weak ban in short interval weakens Lord's image. After all you should fear the Lord, not to play hide-and-seek.
Condition: Bitcoin exchanges are about to die out or exiled completely, just need a push.
Probability for this condition to be met:
25% likely:
The third is our Lord's plan B. Use state media to question one exchange about insolvency (typically largest of all targets), force it to actually be insolvent (if it is managable), and use state media propoganda machine to paint Bitcoin evil and black, from birth, with news, documentaries, radio etc etc. This plan is really not needed: as "Art of War" said, letting your enemy quit without a fight is better than killing it in fight; also, thanks to the Internet, change attitude that radically would harm the regime.
Condition: it happens if die-hard bitcoin believers started some group-activities that calls a lot of atention due to Bitcoin price raise largely OR the state decide to take down another die-hard enemy similar in influnce of Bitcoin, and by killing Bitcoin in a confrontation, save the need to do it again for a harder enemy: for the time being, the harder enemy is either P2P lending business or Alibaba.
Probability for this condition to be met:
12% likelyPBOC will say nothing more.
Condition: if exchanges all choose to self-exile, or just do business with cash-at-door on tiny scale, or just die (FxBTC), not trying hosting P2P trading, not trying ATM or vendor machines or tried but not successful, and PBOC consider they are weak enough, and in the interim the world bitcoin price doesn't rally.
Probability for this condition to be met:
12% likelyNot weighted for now: Take down a leading exchange with the execuse of tax issue and others will quit by themselves. If this route is chosen, it should be down long ago when exchanges were not getting so much attention.
Conditoin: if the following is done successfully, the Lord will reconsider this approach.
will always happen together with other outcomes except PlanB: little media exposure (good-or-bad) for Bitcoin in state-own medias, less and less in other Chinese medias.
Will there be a raid?Western readers are concerned with violence so I had to address it. For Chinese readers I won't mention it, because it is:
1% likely: There will unlikely be an arrest / raid, because that sort of thing should happen before the event escalate to central government, when the central government can always blame lower level for the blood. Now:
1. Since this issue is brought to central (The Lord) as early as Dec 2013, there is no space for bloody nor violence.
2. consideration of foreign capital involvement, explicit force action backfires PR trouble.
3. arrest by national government usually targets those outspoken member who holds different opinion than the government and
also different than the people around him, in short, a prominent target. For example, if you say "all officials are corrupted and parasite of the country", they won't arrest you, because your opinion is just another average Joe; but, if you sing freedom and democracy, you are not only different from the government, but
also different from the average Joe hence a prominent target (the people do not demand either of these, they demand opportunity-to-be-wealthy and no-corruption-ruling). None of the exchanges are prominent target by this definition. For example, Huobi CEO explicitly said
"Bitcoin can't be a global currency", and emphasized its property as "collector's piece" hence he is not a prominent target.
4. The regime is rather kind and humane, you are often given a chance, a hint, before violence - usually by inviting you for a tea (and you are really served tea! I never experienced it but I heard it is free and in a nice café - I hope I can choose, because my favorite tea is usually too expensive for me). He who do not repent gets trouble. Even Don Juan is given a chance to repent. None of the bitcoin players are stupid enough not to repent.
What is the effect on priceSorry, I haven't do homework for this party yet. But it depends on which of the above happens. Things happened too fast for my brain to process.
What is the 3rd article aboutAn attempt to find out what drives the bubble in the first place.
P.S.
- A list of guest writing for Bitcoinblog.de by me can be find
http://bitcoinblog.de/category/english/ where my name Weiwu is.