Huobi to stop servicing Chinese users as China vows strict crackdown on crypto

A few months after the cryptocurrency mining ban in China, the country issued another update last week, reiterating that digital assets are banned and crypto exchanges are prohibited. Shortly after the announcement, Bitcoin and altcoins plunged.

Huobi halts sign-ups for new Chinese users 

China’s central bank, the People’s Bank of China (PBoC), stated last week that services offering trading, order matching, token issuance and derivatives for digital assets are strictly prohibited. In addition, crypto exchanges that provide services in the country would also be illegal. 

Vowing to crack down on the new asset class, any crypto exchanges that use the internet to offer services to domestic residents are considered illegal financial activity. Bitcoin price plunged roughly 7% in 24 hours following the PBoC announcement.

Earlier this year, China started to clamp down on crypto mining, leading to a steep drop in Bitcoin’s processing power as miners were forced to take their equipment offline. 

Following the recent reiteration of the crypto ban, leading crypto exchange Huobi stated that it would stop allowing mainland Chinese users to register new accounts. The digital asset platform also said it would cease support for existing Chinese users by the end of 2021, with arrangements to be announced later on.

Huobi has stopped users with mainland Chinese mobile numbers from opening accounts on the platform since September 24, following the central bank’s declaration. The exchange also noted that it had previously blocked Chinese users from trading derivatives when the government reiterated its crackdown on digital asset activities in June.

Another leading crypto exchange, Binance, has continued to disallow Chinese users from signing up on its platform. The digital asset firm stated that it does not operate in the country and actively blocks Chinese IPs from accessing its platform. 

However, OKEx, another major digital asset exchange in China, still accepts new registrations currently as it does not require users to specify their country when signing up.