|
Today, according to an article in China Securities Journal titled "Risks of Bitcoin Trading Platforms Highlighted, Regulators Considering Third-Party Custody", which was circulated in major media, the gist of the report is that regulators have begun to pay attention to the various risks inherent in the Bitcoin trading process, and will continue to meet with industry insiders to discuss the establishment of a third-party Bitcoin custody platform to ensure the security of Bitcoin transactions.
As soon as the news came out, whether the emergence of a third-party custody platform could minimize the risks in the Bitcoin transaction process and thus protect the interests of investors became a hot topic for a while.
In this regard, Tian Jia, CTO of Future Securities, a global stock index quantitative trading platform, said that even if a third-party custody platform is established, Bitcoin transaction supervision cannot be solved once and for all.
In his opinion, the real threat to investors' interests is actually technical problems, including trading platform attacks that lead to trading system crashes, hackers stealing investors' personal information, etc. If the technical capabilities of Bitcoin trading platforms are not up to standard, even if they do not do evil subjectively, they will become "evil guys" objectively. Therefore, it is imperative to establish technical standards for trading platforms.
Bitcoin trading platform runs away. It is understood that there are currently three major Bitcoin trading platforms in China, namely: Huobi, Bihang and BTC China. Among them, Huobi's trading volume ranks first. As of December 12, 2016, Huobi's daily trading volume has reached 230,000 Bitcoins, and the daily trading amount has exceeded 6.1 billion, once again breaking the global Bitcoin trading record.
It is worth noting that there are also undercurrents of risk. Similar to the p2p platform running away incident, it also exists in Bitcoin. In November 2013, the first large-scale virtual currency fraud case occurred in China. A Bitcoin trading website called GBL ran away with customer deposits. The incident caused 500 people to suffer losses and more than 20 million funds "disappeared". Later, relevant departments learned that although the platform had a registered company, it did not obtain the Hong Kong Customs Money Service Business License or the Securities and Futures Commission license, which violated Hong Kong's anti-money laundering laws and the Securities and Futures Ordinance.
Coincidentally, Beijing Business Daily reported today that a Bitcoin Asia Lightning Trading Center has encountered a repayment crisis. The platform once managed Bitcoin investment on behalf of customers and promised investors fixed dividends and cash withdrawals at any time. However, on January 5, the platform not only stopped dividends, but also closed its website, and it is suspected that it fled with hundreds of millions of yuan of investors' funds.
Although the "BLG" and "Yashan" incidents occurred quite a long time apart, they are enough to illustrate that Bitcoin trading platforms also face the risk of running away, and those who ultimately pay for it are undoubtedly innocent investors.
High returns and high risks From the beginning of 2016 to the beginning of 2017, Bitcoin, as a commodity with investment value, increased by more than 260% in one year. However, with such high returns, the risks that come with it cannot be ignored.
First, because Bitcoin transactions are anonymous and have the advantages of being borderless and cross-border, some criminals use it as a channel for money laundering;
Secondly, as of now, Bitcoin has no credit guarantee, and its price is greatly affected by policy and market factors, which is prone to fluctuations and has high risks;
Thirdly, Bitcoin liquidity management is difficult. When there is a problem with the liquidity management pipeline of the exchanger, users may not be able to exchange it for legal currency. If the price of Bitcoin fluctuates greatly, the holder may suffer price losses.
Finally, Bitcoin is a decentralized currency built on a global p2p network. Bitcoin property is completely controlled by the owner. Once the Bitcoin on the computer is stolen due to a virus or hacker attack, it will be difficult to recover these Bitcoins.
Third-party custody is not the only solution. So, in an environment without supervision, what else should Bitcoin platforms do to ensure the safety of investors' funds, besides setting up third-party custodians and avoiding capital pools?
It is understood that in the process of users keeping Bitcoin, their Bitcoin wallets that store private keys are often accidentally deleted, lost and stolen. In this regard, if the platform conducts limited real-name registration of Bitcoin addresses, users can use reliable security strategies to protect their funds.
In addition, Bitcoin's online trading platforms are prone to price manipulation and order-padding, which directly leads to large fluctuations in Bitcoin prices and ultimately harms the interests of investors. This is why the central bank recently met with the main persons in charge of some Bitcoin trading platforms. Therefore, as a platform, it should be responsible for its own trading volume, and avoid false propaganda and malicious speculation.
Judging from recent incidents of Bitcoin theft, the main reason is that the security verification level of the Bitcoin platform is not high enough. To solve this problem, the trading platform can do so by continuously improving its own technical standards and internal risk control capabilities. |
