Quote from: stan.distortion on January 13, 2014, 12:10:46 PM

China's pumping out FUD, guess that could account for the downturn: [...] Maybe its just a more determined effort to force a long term downtrend inline with the April charts or just an upscaling of anti-bitcoin activity for 2014 [...]

A government's attitude towards cryptocoins presumably depends on their perceived effect on the country's economy - or, rather, what it thinks the economy should be.

Cryptocoins have been used mostly for speculation so far, but are being promoted as a means to move money across national borders, bypassing bank fees and money export regulations. That may explain why bitcoin became so popular in China, at a time when its price was stagnating on the West.

Most countries do not care for speculation and zero-sum games, even if they ruin some people's lives. Financial gambling tends to concentrate wealth, and politicians would rather serve one billionaire than 1000 millionaires. Such schemes get banned only when banks or powerful people lose big money with them.

Most governments do care for international money transfers. Countries that are likely to be on the receiving end (such as the US, Singapore, and tax heavens) will probably love cryptocoins, while countries likely to be on the other end (like China, India, and Latin American countries) will want to restrict or ban them, as they do with other payment methods.

I suspect that China is planning to ban cryptocoins, but is doing it slowly so that big investors have the time to sell their coins to smaller fish. I presume that they would rather deal with 10,000 workers who lost 10,000 USD each than with one tycoon who lost 100 million because of the ban.