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At least 18 cryptocurrency exchanges are inaccessible in China or have announced that they are leaving the market in a rush to cut ties with Chinese users after the communist government handed down its latest ban — this time, on all things crypto.
Binance and Huobi Global, two of the world’s largest exchanges and popular with Chinese users, have stopped registering new accounts for mainland customers. Huobi also said it would clean up existing accounts by the end of the year.
TokenPocket, a popular service provider of crypto wallets, said in a notice to clients that it would terminate services to mainland Chinese clients that risk violating Chinese policies and would “actively embrace” regulations.
Cryptocurrency values dipped, then rallied, following China’s decision Friday to issue a blanket ban on digital assets when the People’s Bank of China declared all crypto-related activities illegal.
China has previously targeted activities such as crypto mining, but the latest crypto ban extends to crypto trading and overseas exchanges that provide services to mainland investors, erasing any doubt about authorities’ intentions.
Leading crypto assets Bitcoin and Ether tumbled in an investor selloff in the wake of the news.
Bitcoin, the largest cryptocurrency in the world, slipped 4.5 percent to trade at $41,509 on Friday but had regained much of the losses by Monday to trade at $47,103. Bitcoin was trading at $42,117.01 Tuesday as of this writing.
“It indicated that the outlook for the week is positive. Bitcoin’s dominance increased marginally and now stands over 42.5 percent.”
Worries earlier last week about Evergrande Group, China’s second-largest real estate developer, had already sent markets down before China announced its blanket crackdown on crypto activities.
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China’s top financial regulators said Friday that they are banning all crypto-related transactions and warned employees of crypto exchanges outside the country that they will be investigated. Chinese regulators also called for increased censorship on crypto information providers, Coindesk reported.
Crypto exchange BitMart said it will clear out user accounts registered to mainland China by Nov. 30 in compliance with Chinese regulations and “safeguard user assets.” It will stop providing all services to users in mainland China after that date.
Crypto exchange Biki said it plans to stop accepting all deposits on Tuesday, and users can only make withdrawls.
Crypto-focused sites CoinMarketCap and CoinGecko were blocked late Monday, the Block reported. Trading information provider TradingView was inaccessible Tuesday in China, according to monitoring site GreatFire.org.
