10th April, Beijing- OKCoin, one of the “Big Three” Bitcoin Exchange in China, released a statement today upgrading KYC/AML requirement, but failed to mention exact timing of BTC withdrawal processing. The statement was posted online around 1PM today, claiming the upgrade is to comply with AML regulation and risk-control concern and ask for customer collaboration.

Starting from January 2017, PBOC-led work group was deployed on site in the “Big Three” Bitcoin exchanges and bitcoin withdrawal were suspended on 9th Feb. One mother later, the suspension was announced to be extended.

The first notice says:

“When your account balance exceeds a certain amount, OKCoin staff may contact you for video verification. Customers shall prepare relevant documents and device for certification.”

Aside from the usual ID card or passport pictures, video verification requires customer to record a video with the user holding valid ID papers in front of a functional video-recording device cellphone, PC or iPaD etc.

The “certain amount” of balance is not specified in the statement and brings doubts and uncertainty to customer. If customer withdraw constantly and keep his balance at low level, will the customer be exempt from video verification?

OKCoin “strongly” advise customers to modify login passwords and Google 2FA key to further enhance account security. Users who failed to do so will be promoted to change their password regularly.

Also OKCoin users are given one-time-only chance to change their real-name info. After the modification, the real-name info will be permanently locked.

It’s not difficult to infer that such policy is to accommodate those who didn’t use their real-name in the very beginning. But they might need to do so if they still had balance in their account.

Despite the failure to mention specific date of BTC withdrawal processing, some did find a date in the statement. At the end of the statement, OKCoin says that the old deposit address for BTC and LTC will be abandoned gradually. Address with “1” or “3” initials will no longer be valid after 23rd April and multi-sig address will be adopted.

Far-fetching speculations on 8btc forum linked that date to the allowing of BTC withdrawal.

So far, 8btc received no updates from other major bitcoin exchanges like BTCC or Huobi.

As transaction volume withered on Chinese exchanges, so did people’s hope.