Today Japan Becomes Largest Bitcoin Market as Traders Leave China
Japan has once again become the largest Bitcoin exchange market with 50.75 percent market share of the global Bitcoin exchange market. Analysts including BitFury Vice Chairman George Kikvadze attributed the surge in the trading volume of the Japanese Bitcoin exchange market to the exit of Bitcoin traders in China.
Earlier this week, the Chinese government, local authorities and financial regulators officially requested Chinese Bitcoin exchanges and trading platforms to halt their services by the end of September. OKCoin and Huobi, the two largest exchanges in China, were granted leeway to operate until Oct. 30, considering the fact that they have not been involved in any initial coin offerings (ICOs) in the past.
But, it seems as if traders are not willing to take any chances with the Chinese government and their unpredictable nature. The Chinese Bitcoin exchange market’s daily trading volume has halved within a period of three days, from 15 percent to less than seven percent.
According to various trusted Bitcoin market data providers such as CryptoCompare, China only accounts for 6.4 percent of global Bitcoin trades at the time of reporting.
Bitcoin stabilization
As Lee emphasized, the exit of the Chinese Bitcoin exchange market should really only have affected around 10 to 15 percent of traders in the global Bitcoin exchange market. Yet, speculators and impatient traders initiated a major sell-off as the Chinese government banned exchanges, leading to a major correction on Bitcoin price.
Over the next few weeks, the global Bitcoin exchange market will stabilize, as traders move from the Chinese market to South Korea and Japan, two markets that have developed significantly more efficient regulations, industry standards and policies for both cryptocurrency exchanges and users.
It is likely that as Lee and Draper noted, the closure of the Chinese Bitcoin exchange market could lead to the stabilization of the global Bitcoin exchange market, which may be beneficial for Bitcoin in the long run.