Risk and profit seeking traders will be able to conduct arbitrage trades during this funding crunch. The trade I describe below is the most obvious.
Buy Bitcoin outside of Bitfinex.
Sell Bitcoin for USD on Bitfinex at a premium.
Withdraw HKD to your bank account from Bitfinex.
Wire the funds at your bank rate back into USD to a cheap Bitcoin/USD exchange.
Rinse and repeat.
The ability to execute this trade is predicated on the ability to withdraw HKD or another fiat currency easily and quickly from Bitfinex. Given the recent updates, this assumption is questionable. All MSBs globally face similar issues, it may be weeks if not months before Bitfinex, OKCoin, or any other affected exchange is able to establish banking relationships again.
Due to the halt of Bitcoin withdrawals in China, XBT/CNY trades at a 15% discount to Bitstamp and GDAX. Therefore the premium on exchanges where fiat cannot be withdrawn, could easily reach a similar 15% premium.
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Good thoughts