A recent report released by the world’s leading investment bank Goldman Sachs has revealed that the currency pair Bitcoin-Yuan comprises of 80% of the global trading volume on the Bitcoin exchanges. The report titled, “The Future of Finance: Redefining The Way We Pay in the Next Decade,” was written by payments analysts at the bank’s research division, James Schneider and SK Prasad Borra. The second highest traded currency pair is BTC/USD.
However, the report failed to touch upon the fact that Chinese exchanges often don’t charge any fee for trading, leading to a spurt in trading activities.
The rise in the trading volume is inconsistent with the security troubles that have plagued the digital currency over the year gone by. Chinese exchanges have been hit by numerous scams and thefts in the past year. In January this year, a Hong Kong-based Bitcoin exchange MyCoin turned out to be a fraud.
The dominance of China’s Bitcoin trading comes amid the ban on banks and financial institutions to invest or participate in cryptocurrencies or in associated businesses. However, it might come as a revelation that the Chinese regulators continue to let the Bitcoin startups flourish and the situation is not as grim as it seems. “The Chinese government is surprisingly open about the cryptocurrencies”, says Roland Sun, the head legal expert for ZAFED and the Chinese crowdfunding platform DACx.
The Chinese central bank has also been unintentionally supporting Bitcoin trading by weakening the yuan through its monetary easing policies. China has been following an asset purchase program to put more liquidity into its collapsing financial system, thereby lowering the interest rates considerably. Traders and speculators borrow at extremely low rates to trade on the Bitcoin exchanges in anticipation of higher returns on their investments.
