People Bank of China Initiates Fresh Crackdown on Crypto Trading In Shanghai. Bitcoin Price Crashes
In a major cleanup for the crypto trading activities taking place in the country, China’s central bank - People’s Bank of China - has issued a fresh crackdown on all crypto trading activities taking place in Shanghai.
China has banned all crypto-related activities taking place in the homeland since September 2017. Over the last two years, the Asian economic giant has been following a strict protocol and rendered crypto operations as illegal in the country.
In an official statement, the PBoC wrote that China’s recent efforts of promoting the blockchain technology’s resulted in a major surge in virtual currency speculation. Thus, the PBoC added that to step up the measures to prevent such activities, “the Shanghai Financial Stability Joint Conference Office and the Shanghai Headquarters of the People's Bank of China and the relevant departments at the Shanghai Municipal Level have launched special projects on virtual currency-related activities in Shanghai. Remediation, ordered to solve the problem of providing publicity, drainage and other services for the virtual currency trading platform registered overseas”.
The PBoC has also asked investors to stay careful and not mix blockchain developments with virtual currency. The central bank wrote: “There are multiple risks in virtual currency issuance financing and trading, including false asset risk, business failure risk, investment speculation risk, etc. Investors should enhance their risk prevention awareness and beware of being fooled. Being cheated”.
Furthermore, the PBoC has also asked investors to report any crypto-related activity taking place around them to the concerned regulatory department.
One thing is clear that with PBoC stepping up its measures to launch a central bank digital currency (CBDC), China won’t be allowing any external or foreign elements to conduct any similar project in the country.
To prepare for its CBDC launch, China is currently limiting the use of cash in certain regions of the country. Besides, the Chinese government has also passed a separate law for state-sanctioned digital currencies
On the other hand, Bitcoin is seen losing its value very fast in the last seven days. As per the WorldCoinIndex weekly chart, Bitcoin has lost $1300 just in the last seven days going below $7000.
At press time, Bitcoin is trading at $7250 with a market cap of $130 billion.