China just banned all crypto transactions

Whelp, it was a good run while it lasted for Chinese crypto holders. The country just banned all crypto transactions, even those at off-shore exchanges, and is cracking down further on illegal crypto mining operations.

See, China banned Bitcoin mining in its entirety, starting back in May. It also banned financial institutions and payment companies from providing any services that relate to cryptocurrency. That led to a huge price correction in the coin, from record levels of over $53K per coin, down to around the $35K mark.

It’s slowly recovered since, but this new blow to the trillion-dollar industry could create waves in the whole market again.

This time, it’s not just Bitcoin getting the banhammer, it’s every single form of crypto, with all transactions and mining getting declared illegal. A group of ten agencies including China’s central bank are working together to enforce the ban, the first time they’ve all worked together with this aim.

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The People’s Bank of China said [we must] “resolutely clamp down on virtual currency speculation, and related financial activities and misbehavior in order to safeguard people’s properties and maintain economic, financial and social order.”

That’s possibly true, although, with China’s own sovereign digital-yuan not far away from wider release, it could also be that the central bank only wants one cryptocurrency on the domestic market.

Whatever the future holds for Bitcoin, and the rest of the cryptocurrency market, this ban is a showstopper for Chinese miners, who have to either go underground and risk the government finding them, or lose out on profits by shipping their mining operations to more crypto-friendly countries.

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Joe Rice-Jones

Maker, meme-r, and unabashed geek with nearly half a decade of blogging experience. If it runs on electricity (or even if it doesn't), Joe probably has one around his office somewhere. His hobbies include photography, animation, and hoarding Reddit gold.