Binance and Huobi stop onboarding users from China
Binance and Huobi, two of the largest crypto exchanges in the world, have stopped taking in new accounts from users in China with Huobi going one step further and saying that it would shut down all the accounts of users from China by the end of the year.
This follows the crackdown on the crypto industry in China and the ban on crypto transactions within China or by any Chinese national as stated by the Chinese government last week. The country has been making announcements asking the crypto industry to shut shop and though this is probably one of many times that the Chinese government has made such an announcement, this time it seems to be serious and means business. This is evident from the sweeping economic and social changes that it has been making over the last few months and in the crypto industry, it has already ensured that the Chinese crypto miners shut up shop as per an order issued earlier in the year.
“To comply with local laws and regulations, Huobi Global has ceased account registration for new users in Mainland China as of Friday (Sept. 24),” the company said in a statement. “Huobi Global will gradually retire existing Mainland China user accounts and ensure the safety of users’ assets.”
Binance has also said that it has started implementing the ban and would restrict the Chinese clients by identifying them through their KYC or their IPs and would block them. Users from Hong Kong do not face any such restrictions and are allowed to continue to register on these exchanges as usual. The ruling by the Chinese central bank, PBOC, affects only those in mainland China and the law also restricts even foreign crypto exchanges from running on Chinese soil or taking on clients from China.
The law was made to restrict any kind of illegal financial activity using crypto and also to ensure that gambling and scamming through the use of cryptocurrencies would also be restricted by this law. This announcement led to a large drop in the crypto prices but the prices have since recovered over the last couple of days though the full impact of this Chinese ban would be known only in the coming months.
