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Demand from China has been cited as the reason behind the rise in the value of bitcoin past $400, but what exactly does China mean for the future of the digital currency? "China has the potential of really making or breaking bitcoin and its acceptance," Zennon Kapron, managing director of financial consulting and research firm Kapron Asia said at the 2013 bitcoin Singapore conference on Friday. Bitcoin has continued to test fresh highs even after the shutdown of Silk Road - an online black market for illegal products - on October 1, where it was often used to purchase goods. And analysts say the reason for that could be the digital currency's growing popularity in China, the world's second biggest economy. "There are two things affecting bitcoin in China," Linke Yang, co-founder and vice president of BTC China – the world's largest bitcoin exchange by volume – told CNBC on the sidelines of the conference. "One is that there are a lot of [bitcoin] miners in China," Yang said, referring to those participating in the process of adding transaction records to bitcoin's public ledger and who can earn bitcoins for their efforts. "The second is that, traditionally, high net-worth individuals and investors first go to the property market to invest and then the stock market, but since the property market is capped and controlled and stocks maybe aren't doing so well that's changing," Yang said. "After we had the China Central Television piece [on bitcoin in March] people here know about bitcoin and are putting their money into it." (Read more: Winklevosses: Bitcoin worth at least 100 times more)

Kyle Drake, founder of CoinPunk, an open source hybrid web wallet agreed: "Investors are starting to opt for alternative investments such as bitcoin amid concerns that traditional investments such as the housing market are becoming increasingly risky." According to Drake, Chinese demand is largely investment driven. He noted that there currently isn't much use for bitcoin as a means of purchasing goods and services in China. High net worth individuals also use bitcoin as a way to get money out of China, Kapron said. While such individuals often have the means to skirt rules limiting nationals from taking more than $50,000 out of China a year, Kapron noted that bitcoin has become a popular alternative given how quick and discreet transactions are. China regulation? With the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs scheduled to discuss virtual currencies at a hearing next week, the potential for regulation hangs over the bitcoin market. Chicago Federal Reserve senior economist Francois Velde wrote last week that "should bitcoin become widely accepted, it is unlikely that it will remain free of government intervention, if only because the governance of the bitcoin code and network is opaque and vulnerable." Yet, Chinese authorities have not taken a stance on bitcoin, a stark contrast with the country's stringent investment regulations. (Read more: Peter Schiff calls bitcoin bubble tulip mania 2.0)

