Free Bitcoin transactions are becoming history, and this time speculators are to blame

When it comes to investment and financial management, getting the best deal may not be important, but not being taken advantage of is very important.

As a sheep (human) who can barely make ends meet, I don’t have much hair on my body. In 2016, third-party payment companies started charging withdrawal fees. WeChat and Alipay took advantage of me. I finally made it to the end of the year, but I still had to pay individual taxes when I received my year-end bonus. It’s so cold!

Looking around, the only ones who still insist on not taking advantage of the situation are the banks that have turned back and the Bitcoin platforms that have quietly made money. The banks’ fee-free service is subject to restrictions, but the Bitcoin platforms are extremely generous, with no fees for buying and selling, and even a 0.3% rebate for passive transactions! They are simply the only conscience left in the investment community.

However, under the guidance of the central bank, this last bit of conscience is also going to disappear. Three Bitcoin trading platforms have started charging a handling fee of 0.2% of the transaction amount >>

Bitcoin: A tall tree attracts the wind and is full of controversy

Yesterday, someone asked the editor of Rong360: For example, if I use 50 or 100 yuan to buy a bitcoin, will it rise or fall like a fund?

Although Bitcoin has fallen a lot recently, no matter how much it falls, this amount of money cannot buy a whole Bitcoin. It can only scrape off a layer of the coin... It is true that Bitcoin has ups and downs.

This morning, the domestic price of Bitcoin was approximately RMB 6,250.

In early January, the number was 8,762.

Bitcoin soared in 2016 and soared even higher in 2017. The super market brought a lot of trouble. The day after reaching the peak, three domestic trading platforms were interviewed by the central bank and asked to conduct self-inspection and rectification. The central bank also conducted an on-site inspection in person.

During this process, Bitcoin continued to fall, finally falling to just over 6,000 today.

The latest big move came at 8 p.m. on January 22, when three domestic trading platforms, Huobi, Bihang and BTC China, simultaneously announced on their official websites that starting from 12:00 noon on January 24, they would all charge 0.2% of the transaction amount.

The reasons are unsurprisingly the same: to further curb speculation and prevent sharp price fluctuations.

It seems that a large part of the problem lies in speculation.

Bitcoin speculation: Professionals follow the trend, no matter how big the deal

As soon as the fee notice was issued, the trading volume of the three Bitcoin trading platforms shrank sharply. For example, Huobi.com had a maximum daily trading volume of more than 4 million during the New Year's Eve, while the daily trading volume last week was less than 500,000.

Those who really have an urgent need for Bitcoin are not afraid of this tiny transaction fee; those who withdraw their money as soon as the fee is charged do not love Bitcoin that deeply at all, and most of them are speculators.

Speculators followed suit and invested in Bitcoin, driving the price up abnormally, triggering the central bank to intervene, and ultimately cutting off their own financial resources. This is a story that is well deserved but inevitable.

Where does the trend of following the trend come from? From the State Administration of Foreign Exchange.

Bitcoin transactions do not occupy the individual foreign exchange purchase limit, and have always been a paradise for those who transfer funds abroad. In 2017, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange set more stringent conditions for foreign exchange purchases, requiring not only the detailed purpose of foreign exchange purchases and the estimated time of use to be reported, but also the ant-moving-style group purchase of foreign exchange was banned. Many people who need to transfer funds abroad have no choice but to turn to Bitcoin.

This in itself has pushed up prices, and this trend has been keenly sensed by speculators, who earn the difference through high-frequency trading, pushing Bitcoin to an incredible peak.

Regulatory action: deleveraging and preventing speculation

Bitcoin has created miracles, which is a myth in the eyes of ordinary people, but really outrageous in the eyes of regulators. It was originally a field that was neither legal nor illegal, but now it is blatantly engaging in gray exchange, and also financing and currency lending (which can be understood as long and short positions in futures) and leveraging, with large fluctuations and bubbles, and lawlessness.

So the regulation has begun, stopping margin trading and charging transaction fees. Friends who enter the market after 12:00 tomorrow, want to buy low and sell high to make a profit? Pay the toll first. In the past, because there was no handling fee, the Chinese market has long dominated more than 90% of global Bitcoin transactions, but this paradise will become history.

Investment and financial management also involves the survival of the fittest. If you don't speculate, others will. After they make a profit and leave, you have to bear the consequences for them. It's very frustrating to think about it.