8:10 AM Beijing-Li Xiaolai, the famous lecturer and also widely known for his investment in Bitcoin, released a weibo :

The bottom is always twice of last ATH(all time high). (July 2014)

The message soon aroused attempts to decipher the OP’s real intention. Although it didn’t mention the word “bitcoin”, it was generally believed that he was hinting the price fluctuation of Bitcoin in recent days. The date means that he was just repeating his opinion in July 2014, just like history did.

BTC took a nose dive today in China’s exchanges around 12PM. Price headed south and the support at 18,000 and 17,000 seemed weak. Later a screenshot was reposted like wild fire in the Wechat group:

The screenshot quotes source from Caixin, a famous financial media in China, that all digital currencies, including BTC and LTC, would be banned from trading by June. The screenshot was later confirmed fake news.

Around 14PM, the price bounced from around 16700 as another screenshot emerged:

This one even looks more authentic and carries a message that is completely contradictory to the last one.

“PBOC is to legalize Bitcoin, asking all exchanges to update KYC system.”

It was, once again, fake news.

Trolling has been a nuisance in the market, especially when investors took a hit by misleading information. Trollbox feature has been around for a while with Btc-e being the first exchange that offers such feature since 2012. Poloniex recently removed trollbox from the exchange to meet increasing demand from customer support. Yunbi has a chatroom but any who wants to troll there needs to pass KYC and has record of deposits. Unverified rumors could spread fast amid true news in these trollbox as Chinese has a tradition to believe in side-channel news.

Screenshot of Yunbi Chatroom. Topic always center around price.

Two things, however, are expected in the near future.

As disclosed in our previous report, the Chinese authority would issue a penalty order to exchanges and two regulatory rules. Secondly, the upcoming UASF on 1st August poses a threat to the integrity of Bitcoin network. Viabtc posted a statement regarding the upcoming BIP148. Viabtc.cn, the exchange, offers trade pairs “148coin” and “BTC_FROZEN1 coin” starting from today. So far no transaction has been executed on the 148/ETH trade pair.