Earlier today, sosobtc, one of the most popular price watch app in China, announced on weibo that the default CNY price would be based on Bitfinex price due to

“Variance of bitcoin price between domestic exchanges and foreign exchanges”

The move sheds light on providing a more reliable benchmark for traders.

Sosobtc was founded in Shenzhen at the end of 2013 and has become one of the most professional digital currency market and data analysis provider in China.

Since the PBOC inspection in Jan 2016, the big three exchanges in China, bitcoin price of Huobi, OKCoin and BTCC have lost its credibility and OTC trade price is somehow slow and isolated from online exchanges.

The decision of sosobtc was applauded by the community and users were urging Bitkan to do the same. Bitkan is another Shenzhen-based startup, offering price watch and OTC trade service.

Cai Wenhao, Business Director of Sosobtc, told 8btc:

The liquidity of bitcoin was hampered by a series of tightening regulatory measures, especially the halting of bitcoin withdrawal last Friday. We can see significant drop of transaction volume in domestic exchanges. The altcoin price on our site are based on price feed from Poloniex. If we still display the CNY price of altcoin that were converted from bitcoin price of a domestic exchange, that would be misleading to our users.”

He also explained preference of Bitfinex over other exchanges.

“Bitfinex is an international exchange and has large transaction volume.”

With the lock-down of bitcoin, people are doing everything they can to lay hands on movable coins. One of the option is to transfer funds via altcoin. It’s said altcoin withdrawal from btc38 were processed instantly. But Yuanbao has specifically mentioned suspension of all withdrawal requests, including CNY. Bter is usually ignored due to the lack of liquidity.

However, the BTC price on Yunbi is the highest among all domestic exchange.



The absence of online exchange has pushed demands to OTC market. But some are expecting price drop when exchanges allows withdrawal next month.

Samson Mow, COO of BTCC, announced leaving BTCC for personal reasons after two years of working. Samson Mow was quite controversial for his support of segwit on scaling issue. With his leaving and the plummet of exchange volume, people are concerned with the operational cost of these exchanges.