Many folks, like Bloomberg and Forbes, have erroneously asserted that China has “banned” Bitcoin in a statement on December 5th.. This isn’t, in fact, the case. I used to be a vice president for a large investment bank based in Hong Kong, so I can provide a little better insight than most on what’s going on with.

The People’s Bank of China has basically given the green light for Bitcoin trading and exchanges. They are trying to keep Bitcoin trading “separate” from the other parts of the financial system so that if Bitcoin blows up, then nothing bad will happen. The thing that I think they are worried about is a Lehman Brothers-style situation in which something blowing up in derivatives brings down the rest of the economy.

The strategy of creating a ring fence around new markets is a very standard one in China. Hong Kong is an entire city that is ring fenced.

Outside of financial institutions covered by the People’s Bank of China regulation, there is no other legal restriction for using Bitcoins as the medium of transactions.

People aren’t prohibited from using Bitcoin to purchase things (like a currency), but I don’t want to use the word “currency” since legally speaking Bitcoin is not a currency in either Hong Kong or Mainland China. The fact that Bitcoin is not a currency means that it can be used for transactions in Mainland China. If it was a currency you couldn’t legally use it for a transaction in Mainland China, so the fact that the Chinese authorities consider bitcoin a commodity and not a currency is extremely important.

The same thing goes for Hong Kong. You can use anything for a transaction, but if you convert currencies, you need a money broker license.

One good thing about the Chinese announcement is that by declaring bitcoin to be a “commodity” that creates legal certainty for how it is to be regulated.