There is one thing I really don't understand - what the hell motivates Chinese people to still trade on Chinese exchanges?
Let's say you would hear news that [PUT YOUR COUNTRY HERE] told their banks to stop any Bitcoin-related activities. What would a normal, rational-thinking person do? It would get off the exchange as soon as possible, in my opinion. It would try to exchange BTC to fiat and move out as long as there is more clarity about the current situation.
But why are Chinese still trading on Chinese exchanges?! I really don't get it. Am I missing something? Maybe someone can help me out.
We can hypothesize that this effect is the result of some force or combination of forces in the Chinese economy/society. We can speculate why (housing bubble, no good investment opportunities, tremendous concentrations of wealth, large underground economy) for fun. But more importantly what does the existence of this force mean for Bitcoin in China? I think it actually means that Bitcoin will remain very much alive there... perhaps spreading via other, less centralized means.