Cryptocurrency exchange will stop 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 users in mainland China after Beijing renewed its crackdown on cryptocurrencies.

The People’s Bank of China has declared all crypto-related activities, including transactions on Friday, illegal. The central bank of China was also targeting overseas exchanges to serve users in mainland China.

Huobi, one of these exchanges, announced on Sunday that it will no longer register new users in mainland China. The company also plans to gradually abolish existing accounts for users in mainland China by midnight on December 31, 2021.

Meanwhile, Binance, one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges, said account registration using Chinese mobile numbers is currently blocked. The Binance app is no longer available for download in China.

“Binance takes compliance obligations very seriously and promises to comply with the requirements of local regulators wherever they do business,” a spokeswoman told CNBC.

This year, Chinese authorities have tightened their crackdown on cryptocurrencies for transactions with Bitcoin miners.

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

In 2017, China closed its local cryptocurrency exchange and banned the so-called Initial Coin Offering (ICO). This is a way to raise money for a crypto company by issuing digital tokens.

As a result, many of China’s cryptocurrency exchanges have moved abroad. However, there are still loopholes that allow mainland Chinese traders to buy and sell digital currencies on these offshore exchanges.