Chinese Bitcoin Exchange OKCoin Accused of Fake Data

When China decided to ban all Bitcoin transactions a couple of weeks ago, all the Chinese based Bitcoin exchanges saw a large decrease in deposits rolling on their site. However OKCoin, China’s second largest Bitcoin Exchange, didn’t experience a decrease in the transaction numbers, which is now being speculated in being them providing fake data all along to their users.

Some of the best Chinese traders shared experienced with OKCoin on the popular social media Weibo, resulting in claims of OKCoin deliberately displaying fake numbers. A Bitcoin enthusiast Zhao Letian said “Despite the great difference of market depths, their trading volumes are very close, which can only mean that one is cheating” while another anonymously user wrote “The daily transaction of litecoin (on OKCoin edit) yesterday has reached an unprecedented nine million, but there are only a total of 20 million in existence. How can I ever believe it?”

There has since then been claims of OKCoin only handling 1/10 of the volume they were claiming, making their size relatively smaller than they claimed themselves. Soon after the accusations, OKCoin’s data plunged. Many speculate in if this is to avoid getting caught lying about the numbers and eventually end up having serve time.

The data from OKCoin was being questioned already the day after the Chinese Central Bank banned transactions for Bitcoins and other cryptocurrencies, discontinuing several Chinese Bitcoin exchanges. Not only did this move bring panic all over the world and send the Bitcoin to plump into the ground value wise, but it also made it impossible for Chinese traders to deposit any funds to the exchanges and buy Bitcoins.

While this had a significant hit on most Bitcoin exchanges volumes, OKCoin continued to have the same volume despite the new news, making it clear to many that they were not showing the right data.