Fresh data from Coin.dance, which keeps track of turnover in various countries on cryptocurrency marketplace LocalBitcoins, shows a monstrous surge in trading activity coming out of China.
There was a notable increase in LocalBitcoins trading two weeks ago, when Chinese exchanges first began halting withdrawals of clients’ digital currency deposits as the People’s Bank of China began its crackdown.
However, last week’s turnover figure of 36,214,090 Chinese yuan dwarfs previous weekly readings:
When converted to U.S. dollars at current exchange rates, this figured amounts to $5,273,180. The total amount of actual Bitcoin changing hands in China also hit a new record of 4,999.
For the week ending on February 11th, 2017, only 922 bitcoin were traded in China on LocalBitcoins. This was a new record at the time, but minuscule compared to last week’s figure!
The excessive volume readings over the past two weeks are definitive proof that many Chinese cryptocurrency investors have abandoned the large exchanges in favor of person-to-person trading venues, where exchange requirements & prices vary from seller to seller.
Coinmarketcap ranking stats show that since the start of the PBoC crackdowns and warnings, major Chinese exchanges like BTCC, Huobi and OKCoin have accounted for less and less of global Bitcoin trading.
Chinese flag photo by Craig Nagy
