Hey Mish,

I am a reader from Hong Kong who works and lives in China and earns RMB. I never doubted a collapse in Chinese shadow banking would happen. I have been constantly converting my RMB into HKD. Before, I would just take 20,000 RMB (max allowed by customs) and withdraw the max from ATMs in Hong Kong each day and just eat the 15RMB fee/bank exchange rate.

[Mish note: 20,000 RMB is about $3248 at current pricing]

Now with bitcoin. I can convert RMB to bitcoin, send it to myself and put it back in my bank in Hong Kong as HKD without any currency controls. However, bitcoin is volatile so I only keep my cash in BTC for as little time as possible. The alternative is to sit hours at a tax bureau to obtain a certificate saying you paid taxes before you can remit any money at a bank that charges 200 RMB [$32.50] per wire transfer.