On 13 April 2022, three organizations – the National Internet Finance Association of China, the China Banking Association and the Securities Association of China – jointly issued the Initiative to Prevent relevant Financial Risks of Non-fungible Tokens (“Initiative”). This is the first Non-Fungible Token (NFT) themed official document involving NFT compliance since the rapid development of NFT in China. Although the Initiative is only a self-regulatory statement and not mandatory regulatory rules, considering the special status of the…
As the Wall Street Journal reported, on June 21, 2021: “The People’s Bank of China …said it summoned representatives of multiple institutions—including state-owned commercial banks and Ant Group Co.’s Alipay—and told them to “strictly implement” recent notices and guidelines from authorities on curbing risks tied to bitcoin and cryptocurrency fundraising activities. It was the latest sign that Beijing is intensifying its crackdown on unregulated virtual currencies.” The PBOC Statement talked about how cryptocurrencies are used…
On 3 January, 2020, Tang Sisi, the Vice-Chair of the Smart City Development Research Centre at China’s State Information Centre (CSIC) announced that a Blockchain Service Network (BSN) will launch for commercial purposes in April 2020. What is the BSN? The BSN is a state-backed national blockchain service infrastructure platform that spans public networks, regions and institutions. It was planned by CSIC and independently developed by China UnionPay, China Mobile and others. The BSN has…
On August 17, the central district of Chaoyang in Beijing issued a notice telling hotels, shopping malls, and office buildings in the area to refrain from hosting cryptocurrency events. The same South China Morning Post article that confirmed the ban also reported that at least eight blockchain and cryptocurrency-focused online media outlets – some of which raised several million dollars in venture capital – found their official public accounts on WeChat blocked.
At a blockchain conference in Thailand, a Chinese official indicated that that the blanket ban on ICOs in China might be relaxed in 2018 in favor of other types of regulation.
In well publicized moves in late 2017, both China and South Korea banned ICOs. Today, the Malaysian finance minister said in an interview that Malaysia will not impose a blanket ban on cryptocurrency trading. At the same time, South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency reported that, in a further tightening move, “The South Korean government has been developing a system that is likely to start banning the use of anonymous accounts in cryptocurrency transactions from around…