The only way that china can be remove from the equation is that other countries lift the restrictions on cryptocurrency trading.
China have become the largest market for cryptocurrency due to its lack of restrictions not because of the rich people (that's true,even now,cryptocurrency trading in china is still easier than USA、UK、even japan,just days before,china can even trade bitcoin with credit card.)
So,even if the world's interest in cryptocurrency grows,if their laws still so harsh on cryptocurrency , the lost of China will effect deeply.
Yes it will have a big effect, nobody will doubt that. Personally I was hoping the Chinese government would realize the potential of crypto-currencies and crypto-equities as one of the first. Now is the time to colonize this new world and now is the chance to redistribute the wealth and break the current status quo without having to fight any wars for it.
Any thoughts on the things Bobby Lee said during CoinSummit about Chinese exchanges faking numbers and deceiving people? (Adding extra zeros to volume, repeating past trades, selling to itself, showing non-existent orders that disappear with large market-orders causing flash crashes/spikes, plus zero-fee-trading as fuel on the fire). The most worrying statement I found was saying, in Chinese culture it's seen as OK if everyone does it.
Personally I don't completely blame China for the price tanking, my thoughts were more in line with
this article, albeit not as well worded. I thought of it as up till now Bitcoin had nowhere to go and there was this dam of future speculative-potential that caused the water(price)level to rise. Now the dam has burst and bitcoin is finally starting to flow and being used, so the waterlevel has to come down. That is a positive thing, because flowing is what it was meant to do and may finally offer the general public a reason to adopt it and value to increase. This might even help achieving a higher waterlevel(pricepoint) than before, but this time instead of being an unhealthy dead-puddle it will be a raging torrent with a lot more momentum behind it.