Source: Bitcoincharts.com (as of 25th June, 2014)
CoinDesk has also verified that LakeBTC meets the CoinDesk BPI criteria, which includes rules ranging from minimum trade size to maximum customer withdrawal delays.
Huobi added to Chinese yuan Bitcoin Price Index
In March 2014, in recognition of the growing importance of the Chinese bitcoin trading volume, CoinDesk launched a new Chinese yuan Bitcoin Price Index.
The Chinese yuan BPI is calculated independently from the widely referenced CoinDesk US dollar (USD) BPI, and is based solely on yuan-denominated bitcoin trading volume.
At the time of the launch, our Chinese yuan BPI included two exchanges – OKCoin and BTCChina.
However, one other well-known Chinese exchange, Huobi, had self-reported trading volume in March which supported its inclusion in the CoinDesk BPI, and its reported trading volume continues to be quite significant compared to its peers (Figure 1).
Figure 1: Trading Volume Share – CNY BPI Component Exchanges
Sources: Bitcoincharts.com, BTCkan.com (as of 26th June, 2014)Back in March, CoinDesk felt more time was needed to obtain additional information about Huobi’s business before we were comfortable including it in the BPI. Since then, Huobi has been much more open about its business operations and we are pleased to now add the exchange to our Chinese yuan BPI.
With the addition of Huobi and LakeBTC, there are now a total of seven exchanges across both the USD and CNY BPIs (Table 2 and Figure 2).
Table 2: Trading Volume (BTC units) at USD BPI and CNY BPI Component Exchanges
| Market |
BTC volume (units) |
% of Total |
| okcoinCNY |
48,547 |
48% |
| huobiCNY |
29,658 |
29% |
| bitfinexUSD |
6,790 |
7% |
| bitstampUSD |
5,684 |
6% |
| btceUSD |
3,930 |
4% |
| lakebtcUSD |
3,374 |
3% |
| btcchinaCNY |
2,682 |
3% |
| Total |
100,665 |
100% |
Sources: Bitcoincharts.com, BTCkan.com (as of 26th June, 2014)
Figure 2: Trading Volume Market Share of USD BPI and CNY BPI Component Exchanges
Sources: Bitcoincharts.com, BTCkan.com (as of 26th June, 2014)
Chinese bitcoin market evolves, continues ascent
During a presentation at the March 2014 CoinSummit conference in San Francisco, CoinDesk forecasted that China’s importance to the overall bitcoin economy would continue to increase.
Our last change to the USD BPI was the addition of Hong Kong-based Bitfinex on the 13th of March, 2014, which has now surpassed Europe-based Bitstamp in total USD trading volume over the last 30 days (Table 1).
Coupled with Shanghai-based LakeBTC’s rise in USD trading, a very significant portion of total USD bitcoin trading is now taking place inside China.
Further, 90% of the combined CNY and USD BPI volume is occurring at China-based exchanges (Figure 3).
Figure 3: CNY and USD BPI Trading Volume Share at China and Rest of World (ROW) Based Exchanges
Sources: Bitcoincharts.com, BTCkan.com (as of 26th June, 2014)
Why is such a large share of bitcoin trading volume taking place at China-based exchanges, and will this continue in the coming months? Are these bitcoin exchanges being used to avert Chinese capital control rules? Given the ease with which servers can be relocated does the notion of a ‘China-based’ bitcoin exchange make sense? Share your thoughts in the comments below.