China’s Ban on Cryptocurrency Events Extended to SEZ

The extensive stance of China against cryptocurrency has been causing a buzz in the market for a while now. Since September 2017, China has been actively keeping a check on exchanges, and crypto-oriented business establishments with its ban on crypto-to-fiat trading. The government has now officially placed a ban on all cryptocurrency related sites in both domestic and foreign platforms.

A spokesperson from the People’s Republic of China stated,

“to prevent financial risks, China will step up measures to remove any onshore or offshore platforms related to virtual currency trading or ICOs.”

Even though its hard to judge the consequences of this large-scale crackdown but it may not be hard to relate from these class actions that the effect of these decisions will adversely affect the crypto market and raise concerns among crypto-investors.

Tech Giants & Large Companies like Tencent and Alibaba Group have already taken steps to keep a check on their platforms and portfolio companies, to restrict any illegal transactions made on the context of digital assets like cryptocurrencies.

Just in today, a report by Jiemen, a local news media agency from Guangzhou, has covered the topic of the extension of the ban to the local events scheduled to take place in the Special Economic Zone of Southern China. A similar incident where a ban was imposed upon Beijing’s Chaoyang District was reported last week. Fliers were distributed at the venues detailing the prohibition against commercial parties hosting events of such scale.

The Guangzhou Development District earlier had issued a notice on August 24, and it cited

“maintaining the security and stability of the financial system” as part of the reason

Community forums on Baidu were also shut down as part of the country-wide clampdown. It is highly unlikely to expect the Chinese officials to go back on their stance, however, crypto- enthusiasts are hopeful that the length and extent of these events don’t intensify further to erase out the influence of Chinese investors on Crypto-markets completely.

Vinay Nair

Mr. Nair, made his first ever exit in bitcoins, selling a patent and understands money for its intrinsic value. He is quite vocal about the ability of blockchain technology.