China declaring all crypto transactions illegal sent shockwaves through Asia’s fintech market. It also had a negative impact on Hong Kong; Not only crypto exchanges, but crypto-related companies and stocks were also feeling the bite.
FUD becomes continental
On 27 September, Huobi Tech – an affiliate of the crypto exchange Huobi Global – saw its shares plunge by more than 30%. A day before that, Huobi Global issued a statement that announced,
“To comply with local laws and regulations, Huobi Global has ceased account registration for new users in Mainland China, effective September 24, 2021 (UTC+8). Huobi Global will gradually retire existing Mainland China user accounts by 24:00 (UTC+8) on Dec 31, 2021, and ensure the safety of users’ assets.”
Huobi was headquartered in Seychelles and was founded in China. But even companies with less obvious links to the crypto sector came under the radar. OKG Technology Holdings Ltd., owned by the founder of the OK Coin crypto exchange, Xu Mingxing, recorded a drop of more than 20%.
The big three
What about the most obvious targets? China’s latest crackdown didn’t come out of the blue for Binance, Huobi, and OKEx. Chinese search engines had previously blocked all three crypto exchanges and disabled their accounts.
While Binance Coin [BNB] wasn’t greatly affected by the latest crackdown, Huobi Token [HT] saw a steep drop in price and its 24 hour trading volume fell by 23.94% at press time. OKEx’s OKB token also fell, but was recovering at the time of publication.
Buy the dip
While fear was dominating the market, as noted by the Bitcoin Fear and Greed Index, many traders saw the opportunity to “buy the dip” and obtain Bitcoin at lower prices.
It can be argued that Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele has helped increase the popularity of the trend. After the most recent instance of China FUD, Glassnode data showed that the number of addresses holding more than one BTC had reached a three-month high.
This did not apply only to the king’s room. Glassnode data further showed that the number of addresses holding more than 10 ETH had hit a six-month high for the second day in a row.
Yet, it’s not just contrarian traders who benefit the most from adversity. lars in Bitcoin and Ether through Huobi addresses or sending them into unknown wallets.
At press time, the price of Bitcoin was $$44,050.08.
