People’s Bank of China With a Broader Crackdown on Bitcoin and Crypto

The Chinese crackdown on crypto continues to escalate with a new statement from the nation’s central bank banning more banks and payment providers from interacting with digital assets.

• CryptoPotato reported today that one of the country’s largest banks, the Agricultural Bank of China, had prohibited its clients from doing business with anyone even remotely connected to the crypto space.
• Although that had an immediate adverse effect on the market, with prices starting to tumble, the country has only intensified its anti-crypto measures.
• A new statement from the People’s Bank of China reads that it has taken further actions to prevent market manipulations, illicit virtual currency transactions, and to “protect the citizens’ property.”
• More specifically, the country’s central bank has spoken to other giant banking organizations, like the China Construction Bank, the Industrial Bank, and Postal Savings Bank, and the payment processor Alipay.
• Following the meeting, the PBoC has instructed those entities to stop providing cryptocurrency services, like opening accounts or executing transactions, to their respective customers.

• “The relevant departments of the PBoC pointed out that virtual currency trading activities disrupt the normal economic and financial order, breed the risks of illegal cross-border transfers of assets, money laundering, and other illegal and criminal activities, and seriously infringe the people’s property safety.” – reads the statement.

• With these actions, the central bank has only doubled down on its stance against the cryptocurrency industry.
• The world’s most populated nation has repeatedly outlined its ban and even targetted Bitcoin miners located within its borders, ordering them to cease operations.