China Has Blocked 124 Overseas Crypto Exchanges Skirting Local Laws, PBOC Says
Chen Juan
DATE:  Sep 19 2018
/ SOURCE:  Yicai
China Has Blocked 124 Overseas Crypto Exchanges Skirting Local Laws, PBOC Says China Has Blocked 124 Overseas Crypto Exchanges Skirting Local Laws, PBOC Says

(Yicai Global) Sept. 19 -- China's central bank has blocked 124 cryptocurrency trading platforms that targeted Chinese residents while using overseas servers to sidestep local laws.

The People's Bank of China had been monitoring the platforms after increasing scrutiny over crypto trading in the country last year, its Shanghai office said in a statement yesterday.

Digital currency speculation has quickly aroused great risk and disrupted economic, financial and social order, the statement added, saying continuous efforts must be made to prevent risks derived from initial coin offerings and crypto trades.

China's share of the global crypto market was once around 90 percent, but that has since declined to less than 5 percent, according to the bank.

One major problem in the sector is that after China banned domestic exchanges in 2017, many took their servers overseas but continued to offer services to Chinese clients, the regulator said. Another issue is initial coin, fork and exchange offerings (ICOs, IFOs and IEOs) and cyber currencies that are hyped up under the guise of a sharing economy, it added.

The central bank has also upped surveillance over payment terminals and demanded that transaction agencies tighten up security and blocking suspicious transactions. The regulator has already discovered around 3,000 accounts used for crypto trades and have shut them down, it said. Tougher measures will also be imposed on newly founded websites and social media accounts that cover ICOs and digital currency trading in China.

Editor: James Boynton

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Keywords:   Pboc,Crypto,ICO,Digital Currencies