Cryptocurrency Exchanges Block Chinese Users From Signing Up After Crackdown

GUANGZHOU, China – Huobi, one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges, said it stopped opening new accounts for mainland Chinese users after Beijing renewed its crackdown on virtual currencies.

The People’s Bank of China on Friday declared all activities related to virtual currency, including trading, illegal. The Chinese central bank has also targeted foreign exchanges providing services to users in mainland China.

Huobi, one of those exchanges, said on Sunday that it would end account registrations for new users in mainland China. The company will also phase out existing accounts for mainland Chinese users by midnight on December 31, 2021.

Meanwhile, Binance, one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges, said registrations of accounts using Chinese mobile numbers are now blocked. The Binance app is also no longer available for download in China.

“Binance takes its compliance obligations very seriously and is committed to following the requirements of local regulators wherever we operate,” a spokesperson told CNBC.

This year, Chinese authorities have stepped up the crackdown on cryptocurrencies that has targeted miners and the bitcoin trade.

But China’s tough stance on cryptocurrencies is nothing new. Authorities in the world’s second-largest economy have long been concerned about the impact of digital coins on financial stability.

In 2017, China shut down local cryptocurrency exchanges and banned so-called Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs), a way to raise funds for crypto companies by issuing digital tokens.

Many cryptocurrency exchanges in China have moved overseas as a result of this. But loopholes have remained that allow traders in mainland China to buy and sell digital currencies on these offshore exchanges.