Bitcoin suffered a roughly 30% drop before recovering somewhat yesterday after word hit the market indicating Chinese regulators would no longer allow payment processors to serve bitcoin exchanges. Doubts about the validity of such statements have increased since their announcement, with little official word seen yet from regulators or payment companies. Incidentally, at least two of the largest CNY exchanges happened to drop their zero-fee trading on the same day, offering initial insight into how much free trading was bolstering the recent Chinese market presence. Yesterday morning, reports began surfacing on Chinese microblogging sites indicating the country’s top payment processing companies were called to a closed meeting with the PBOC where they were told they would be forced to sever ties with digital currency exchanges before the Spring Festival (in January). The news appeared to be substantiated by a number of Chinese exchanges switching to exclusive use of smaller, lesser-known processors and has since been reported by China Business News. Whatever the case may be, yesterday’s activity led to a number...