Chinese bitcoin exchange FXBTC to close due to banking issues

Citing new regulatory pressures on bitcoin-related banking, Chinese bitcoin exchange FXBTC announced it will be closing down next week. Although bitcoin exchanges remain legal in the country, the People’s Bank of China (PBoC) has been pressuring the country’s banks to close the accounts of bitcoin business, leaving users with no easy way to deposit or withdraw funds from exchanges. FXBTC did not site any specific account closures in their decision to shutter the exchange, and the decision seems to have arisen from frustration over PBoC pressure and constantly shifting rules, rather from any specific external action.

In the brief post about the closure, FXBTC assured customers that the site will be open until May 10th, but urged them to withdraw funds as soon as possible. The post, translated by CryptocoinsNews, reads:

Due to recent changes in PBOC policy, we have faced unprecedented pressure head-on, including the inability to deposit or withdraw which has prevented normal operation and caused issues and caused difficult decisions to be made. The website has been online for over a year, and has continually earned customer support despite running into problems; however, no matter how hard we work, when faced with the PBOC’s blockade, we are essentially powerless. After long-term losses, we have finally decided to stop operating FXBTC. In order to convenience customer withdrawals, the site will remain open until May 10th. To the majority of FXBTC users, please withdraw before 5/10 because afterwards the site will be closed. FXBTC’s team would like to take this opportunity to thank all of our users’s long term support, once again!

The closure is the first casualty of the PBoC’s new policies on bitcoin, and more closings are expected in coming weeks as smaller exchanges lose access to their banking services. FXBTC is a relatively small bitcoin exchange, with a fraction of the volume of BTC China, OKCoin and Huobi. Unlike those companies, FXBTC has not released plans to move trading offshore in the event of further actions taken against Chinese bitcoin trading, and may simply not have the resource to initiate such a move.