UPDATE (7th December, 09:04 GMT): The bitcoin price has continued to drop overnight on major bitcoin exchanges.The price on exchanges included in the Bitcoin Price Index all currently sit below $700, with the BPI overall having dropped almost 20% to $670 since close of play last night, and BTC China's price seeing a low of ¥4,003 ($658) this morning.The price slump follows the statement from the People's Bank of China and the news that divisions of Baidu and China Telecom, two of the best known names in Chinese internet and telecommunications, removed references to bitcoin payments from their sites.Analysis of the People’s Bank statement has been divided between optimism and pessimism, but its effect was felt on bitcoin values, which dropped from a high of $1,147 on 4th December to $834 the next day on the Bitcoin Price Index.After hovering around that mark for 24 hours or so, they dropped to a low of $670 at the time of writing.The two big Chinese companies attracted a lot of attention in the past month when they announced they would accept bitcoin for certain products and services.

In both cases, it was smaller divisions of the two companies trialling bitcoin rather than large-scale adoption, and likely done as a promotion.But then came this week’s statements by the People’s Bank, which many say amount to the government’s official disapproval of bitcoin use.Without explicitly banning bitcoin trade, the statement which “clarifies the status of bitcoin” said all financial institutions “must not use bitcoin to set the price for products or services, not buy and sell bitcoins... and not directly or indirectly provide other bitcoin-related services including registering, trading, clearing or settlement.” The statement applies to financial institutions.Bitcoin was a ‘virtual commodity’ that should not be referred to as a currency or virtual currency, the statement said, but added that the general public was allowed to continue trading on the internet.Bitcoin websites and other businesses were allowed to use it in daily life as long as they complied with the usual regulations.

It is not known whether the software division of Baidu (Jiasule) or China Telecom subsidiary Jiangsu Telecom, who accepted bitcoin, subsequently removed the option as a result of any official directive, or were simply playing it safe.This week Suning Yigou, a Chinese home appliances retailer, had said it planned to introduce bitcoin services such as “storage insurance, insurance for bitcoin transactions and other insurance products,” as well as accepting bitcoin payments mining equipment and other hardware products.amsterdam bitcoin centerWhether or not these plans will be affected by events over the past couple of days remains to be seen.bitcoin gokkenThe price of bitcoin has seen a larger than normal drop in trading prices over the past day on a number of bitcoin exchanges.ethereum atm machine

In a major sell-off that started last night, Mt.Gox, the largest US dollar bitcoin exchange, saw a low price today of $800 from a recent high of $1,230, a 35% decrease before bouncing back up a bit.Almost 52,000 bitcoins have been traded on Gox over the past 24 hours.bitcoin vendingCoinDesk’s Bitcoin Price Index, which is an aggregate calculation of top exchange prices, has seen a 24-hour drop of $185 since the day's open, or 18%, at the time of writing.litecoin euro marketThe number of negative news articles being produced about bitcoin and virtual currencies in general has probably contributed to a decline in pricing over the short term.buy a litecoin rigEarlier this week, China’s central bank along with four government ministries released a statement effectively outlawing banks to use bitcoin, which could cause problems for any business that might exchange BTC for the Chinese Yuan.bitcoin pump and dump twitter

And Baidu, which is considered the Google of China, had decided to halt accepting bitcoin after its Jiasule service started accepting it in October.After the statement was released, a price drop was seen on China’s (and the world’s) largest bitcoin exchange, BTC China, where over 73,000 bitcoins have been traded in the past 24 hours.1 bitcoin złThe news cycle is clearly changing sentiment about the distributed virtual currency, raising into question why short selling is not more prevalent to provide better liquidity and less volatility.buy bitcoin in hyderabadWhile shorting bitcoin is technically possible, most of the largest exchanges on the market don’t allow it, leaving specialized trading arbitrators as the only providers.This article was co-authored by Daniel Cawrey and Jon Southurst.The yuan accounts for most of the trade in bitcoins as trading of the unregulated digital currency soars in the world's second-largest economy.

By noon yesterday, about 58 per cent of the global trade during the preceding 24 hours occurred on exchanges trading the mainland currency, according to open-source research project BitcoinAverage.According to the aggregator of market data, China's trading volume in the period reached 827 million yuan (HK$1 billion).Trades in US dollars account for roughly 37 per cent of global volume.Trades in euros account for slightly less than 2 per cent.No other currency accounts for more than one per cent of trade, according to BitcoinAverage.Fortunes have already been made in China via the virtual currency.The value of a bitcoin in China soared 861.02 per cent from 844.75 yuan on September 3, the earliest data available on BitcoinAverage, to its peak value last Friday of 7273.47 yuan.The virtual currency was trading at between 6,300 and 6,400 yuan on Tuesday morning on major Chinese exchanges.Unlike with previous virtual currencies, China’s deputy central bank governor Yi Gang said last month that bitcoins could be freely traded, although the government would not accept them as currency.

A provincial subsidiary of state-run China Telecom even said it would accept payment in the virtual currency.Jiangsu Telecom said last week it would accept the virtual currency for pre-orders of a new Samsung phone.“China is driving the volume predominantly for two reasons: speculation and mining,” said Zennon Kapron, managing director fo the Shanghai-based financial advisory firm Kapronasia.“Returns on Bitcoin this year have surpassed real estate which previously was the best performing mainstream asset class in China, which has naturally attracted more attention and further driven the price up.” Kapron said it was natural for China, the world's biggest manufacturer of bitcoin mining equipment, to play a large role in the trade.Li Lin, head of the Beijing-based Huobi trading platform, told the Beijing Morning Post last week that the majority of new bitcoin traders are women.Another trend is the popularisation of the currency beyond IT geeks and financial experts, she said, adding that a third of the trades on Huobi were made by large investors trading more than a million yuan.

Li did not reply to requests for comment.Another trend seen is the popularisation of the currency beyond IT geeks and financial experts, she said, adding that a third of the trades on Huobi were made by large investors trading more than a million yuan.Liu Jun, the Shenzhen-based CEO of the GoX trading platform told the Post he agreed that non-professionals were increasingly trading in bitcoins, but that men still dominated trades on GoX by about 80 per cent.The trading platform, which launched in June and is registered in Hong Kong, has had up to 20,000 users, who on average invest between 20,000 and 100,000 yuan in the virtual currency, he said.The youngest trader on his platform is 20 years old, while the oldest is in his forties.On Monday, the platform registered a turnover of 64 million yuan in 10,000 trades, he said.The 30-year old software engineer from Changsha, Hunan province, said bitcoins were bound to rise in popularity as they offered a democratic alternative to the stock exchange.

“There are so many manoeuvres behind the scenes determining the trading of stocks in China, whereas bitcoins offer a fair trade,” he said.Liu Tao, the founder of the Shanghai-based BitXF trading platform, said he noticed more non-professionals are entering the trade."In the past, the questions asked by customers were professional, recently we are confronted with more and more simple questions," he said."Many investors don't really understand bitcoins."Liu said he expected some market correction in the near future, but was optimistic about the rise of the virtual currency within the next two to three years.Liu's trading platform has a turnover of about 200 bitcoins per day on average, he said.GoX's Liu Jun estimated that between one and two million Chinese have so far traded in bitcoins.These numbers are bound to increase in smaller cities if the Chinese government did not intervene, he said.The trade, however, not only entails regulatory risks.The first known case of a bitcoin exchange going bust made headlines last month.