It would appear the woes for Chinese bitcoin exchanges around the world are far from over. A few companies have issued official statements indicating how changes will be made to their bitcoin withdrawal system. Thankfully, none of these changes seem to affect things in a negative way, albeit the delays will cause some friction among cryptocurrency users. All things considered, this list of exchanges is doing things the right way, without resorting to suspend withdrawals for a full month.
More Chinese Exchanges Impose BTC Withdrawal Changes
It was to be expected the latest sit down between the PBOC and nine Chinese bitcoin exchanges would have widespread repercussions. As we mentioned earlier today, the biggest changes are made to Huobi and OKCoin, albeit there are ways to circumvent these problems. Some other exchanges have now issued official statements regarding the AML situation and how they plan to handle things.
BTC100 and HaoBTC have mentioned how they will delay bitcoin and litecoin withdrawals, although this should not affect day-to-day operations all that much. It seems these platforms will try to process withdrawals within 48 hours, which is still far better than having to wait a full month. Thankfully, none of the companies will suspend their services entirely, which means users can still buy bitcoin on all platforms without any issues.
What is of particular interest is how HaoBTC feels this change is a positive one. In fact, the company wants to restrict the ability of users to deposit yuan, buy bitcoin, and then transfer the funds out immediately. Restricting this feature to a 48-hour window seems to make sense. One thing that will please a lot of traders far less is how HaoBTC will now charge a whopping 5% deposit fee for all transfers, which is quite steep.
BitBay, another exchange dealing with the Chinese Yuan, announced they will delay withdrawals as well, albeit in far less spectacular fashion. It should take about 70 minutes to get bitcoin and litecoin out of the exchange right now, which is not much slower compared to most other exchanges. While the exchange apologies for this delay, it is far less of an invasive development compared to all other Chinese bitcoin exchanges right now.
Yunbi is the only platform who is very transparent about what their users can expect moving forward. Audits will be performed for every withdrawal request, which is a very time-consuming process. As more audits need to be performed, withdrawal times will be prolonged. This initiates it can take anywhere from 48 hours to about a week until a bitcoin or litecoin withdrawal is processed. A worrisome development for HaoBTC users, albeit it is possible the exchange will make some changes to this delay time in the future.
All things considered, things are not looking all that bad for bitcoin in China. Granted, these changes are annoying and will cause a lot of delays. Then again, with OKCoin and Huobi not suffering from delays when traders use the .com website, it is not unlikely the same will apply to all other exchanges who have separate domains for China and the rest of the world. It would be far worse if bitcoin was actively linked to money laundering and terrorist financing incidents, that much is certain.
If you liked this article, follow us on Twitter @themerklenews and make sure to subscribe to our newsletter to receive the latest bitcoin, cryptocurrency, and technology news.
