“Virtual currency-related business activities are illegal financial activities.”
- People’s Bank of China
THE STORY
Last Friday, China’s central bank announced that all cryptocurrency transactions are now illegal in the country. People’s Bank of China warned that crypto “seriously endangers the safety of people’s assets.”
This is yet another step to wipe cryptocurrencies off what’s one of the world’s biggest crypto markets.
WHY IT'S INTERESTING
China going after crypto is hardly a new thing. Trading cryptocurrency has been officially banned in China since 2019, but Blockchain-based transactions are still alive and well in the country due to online foreign exchanges.
For the last couple of months, Chinese state institutions have increased pressure on the industry. They issued ban on mining crypto, ordered banks and online payment platforms to stop supporting digital currency transactions, and officially warned investors and consumers they would not protect them in case of losses.
And these are all not just words. In June, the police in China arrested over 1,100 suspects in a crypto-related money laundering case and in July, China’s central bank ordered to shut down a Bejing-based company that had provided cryptocurrency transactions software.
China’s crackdown on cryptocurrencies is getting harder almost month by month. But why exactly is the country going after crypto?
There are, at least, two answers to that question.
First is the climate. China, which currently is the world’s biggest carbon emitter, has set out to become carbon neutral by 2060. This is partly why it banned highly pollutive crypto mining.
The second is… China’s own digital currency, which has been in development since 2014. The digital yuan is getting closer and it seems only logical for People’s Bank of China to clear the runway.
And while China’s war on cryptocurrencies is heating up like crypto miner’s GPU, investors overseas seem to remain calm. Meltem Demirors, CTO at Coinshares told CNBC: “You can only ban something once. Every ban after is an admission that you actually couldn’t ban it at all.”
Time will tell if he’s right.
DIG DEEPER
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