As of January 24, Chinese Exchanges begun to charge fees, clamping down on the false trading volumes that have plagued Bitcoin in recent years from the Chinese exchanges. This was done by introducing fees on trades, meaning automatic trading bots could no longer function profitably. The trading between one’s own accounts used to be a vector to manipulate the price. The below chart shows the drop in overall BTC trading volume on Chinese bases exchanges after the introduction of fees:
The Bitcoin price has remained unaffected minus a small 4 – 5% drop since the announcement, but with such a massive drop in trading volume it could be likely that whatever was propping the price up could crash. As always, never invest what you cannot afford to lose where cryptocurrency is concerned. It is likely that Bitcoin will remain a good asset, but with fake trading volumes now gone in china, it is likely to see the real true trading volumes of Bitcoin which will be interesting to observe.
These fees were partially due to the PBOC doing investigations into the exchanges, so it is likely that the Chinese government, rightly so it seems clamped down on false trading for manipulating the markets. It will be an interesting few weeks where price is concerned, but in the long term could produce more stability in the Bitcoin price due to less manipulation, which can only be a good thing.