Did pissed off bitcoin investors take down the People's Bank of China website?

The website of the People's Bank of China (PBOC) went down on Wednesday in an incident many are blaming on bitcoin investors. 

PBOC's website and Weibo account were both attacked after Shanghai-based bitcoin exchange BTC China – which accounts for 40 percent of global trading in the digital currency – blocked renminbi deposits, following PBOC ban on all transactions by third-party payment providers involving digital currencies. PBOC reportedly ordered all third party payment companies to stop dealing in bitcoin by January 31.  

BTC China co-founder Bobby Lee told the Financial Times: "As of right now, we have received notice from our third-party payment company that they will disallow customers from making deposits into our exchange."

Bitcoins are currently worth* 3,307 yuan ($500) on BTC China, a drop of almost 60 percent from its high of 7,287 yuan ($1,200) earlier this year. 

The central bank's website was hit by a "retaliatory" distributed denial of service (DDOS) attack on Wednesday night following the announcement. 

*3pm CST, 19 December 2013

[Images via Flickr, BTC China]