JorgeStolfi
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April 03, 2014, 07:06:51 PM

Well, Huobi's note brings back the uncertainty to the "March 29" stage.

It seems indeed plausible that the banks and 3rd party payment processors that called the exchanges were reacting to the Caixin article, rather than a PBoC note.  

In my understanding, the 3rd party processors were clearly violating the spirit of the December decrees, even if indirectly (through those recharge cards, which I am still not clear on how they worked).  Thus the Caixin article may have been sufficient to scare them into strict compliance.

On the other hand, the banks should have been safe (again, in my understanding), as long as they treated the exchanges like any other corporate client: dealing only with CNY, without involving themselves with bitcoins in any way.  So, the bank(s) that reportedly called some exchanges may have been overreacting.

Or perhaps the PBoC note was real, and did extend to the banks; but the banks may have convinced the PBoC that what they were doing was OK (and very lucrative, of course).  In that case, the note would have reached no further than the bank headquarters, and the branch managers would not know about it

It is possible therefore that the price will climb up to near the level of Mar/27 in the coming days, although the remaining uncertainty must have some negative impact.

EDIT: And, of course, the loss of the 3rd party channels should have a large negative impact.