China’s regulators have begun banning social media accounts belonging to cryptocurrency exchanges that keep proposing services to consumers living on the mainland.
China Baning Cryptocurrency Exchanges on Social Media
According to the reports, on Tuesday local authorities had forced social messaging platform WeChat to ban accounts belonging to choose cryptocurrency exchanges in order to further limit the possibility of mainland residents to trade cryptocurrencies.
In accordance with CCN report, China had forced the shutdown of domestic cryptocurrency exchanges that proposed fiat-to-cryptocurrency trading pairs in September 2017, but some depositors told that they could access the offshore platforms. Other merchants moved to over-the-counter (OTC) and peer-to-peer (P2P) platforms, using social media to find trading partners and execute deals.
Therefore, authorities began controlling internet traffic to offshore exchanges, especially those which had initially been headquartered on the mainland. Officials have reportedly supposed that banks should suspend service to customers found to have engaged in cryptocurrency trading under the pretense of preventing pyramid schemes, money laundering, and other dishonest actions the government has ascribed to cryptoassets.
Although a minor development overall, this step to ban cryptocurrency exchange accounts shows that regulators want to further choke the domestic cryptocurrency trading industry, which once dominated the world market.
CCN could not confirm which exchange’s WeChat accounts have been shutdown and which continue to be active.
CPPCC Participant Floats State-Controlled Digital Asset Exchange
Actually, this step to further forbid trading follows a report that a high-ranking participant of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) has called for the country to create a state-controlled digital asset trading platform that would allow “enterprises to raise funds [and] trade digital assets.” It is not clear whether such an exchange — if created — would list cryptocurrencies.
China’s officials and state-run media outlets have also lauded the potential of blockchain technology during last weeks while also stating that these networks’ decentralized applications should be restricted and always built on a centralized ground.
