Founded in June 2011, BTC China is among the largest Bitcoin exchange platforms by volume traded, and is headquartered in Shanghai, China. The exchange was the first to be launched in China and has built a reputation ebased on trust, reliability, and stability, as it became one of the first venues to feature 2-factor login using Google Authentication, SMS confirmations of transactions, and encrypted login sessions. BTC China is currently led by Bobby Lee who invested in the firm in early 2013 and is its CEO. Bobby is the brother of Charlie Lee the creator of Litecoins. In early 2014 when BTC China added trading in , they did so with the slogan of brothers uniting.
Following Lee’s investment in BTC China, and becoming its CEO, BTC China achieved momentous growth in 2013, in part due to a spike of speculative demand from Chinese traders. The quick expansion of its activity led to the company raising $5 million in Series A funding from investors Lightspeed China Partners and Lightspeed Venture Partners.
The interest from Chinese customers though and spike in bitcoin prices attracted the attention of the People Bank of China (PBOC) towards virtual currencies. On December 18, 2013, BTC China announced that it was acceptance of Chinese Yuan deposits. They said that the decision was due to government regulations, following a 5 December statement from the PBOC warning about virtual currencies. At the end of January 2014, however, the exchange resumed accepting Yuan deposits, after further study of the PBOC statement and other rules. While the PBOC prohibited banks from trading in Bitcoin, BTC China explained that they were accepting Yuan into their corporate bank account, and transferring that money to their customer accounts, before it was traded for Bitcoins. However, in April of 2014, many Chinese firms, including BTC China once again due to pressure from the PBOC. At this point, funding of account in yuan is being implemented via vouchers that are available for purchase at numerous locations around China.
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