Tag: China crypto crackdown

Bitcoin slips after China central bank vows to crack down on crypto trading, BFSI News, ET BFSI

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Bitcoin fell nearly 5 per cent on Friday after China’s central bank said it would crack down on cryptocurrency trading, banning overseas exchanges from providing services to mainland investors.

The largest cryptocurrency was last down 4.6 per cent at $42,874, with smaller coins that typically trade in tandem with bitcoin also tumbling. Ether fell over 8 per cent while XRP slipped 7 per cent.

The People’s Bank of China also said it will bar financial institutions, payment companies and internet firms from facilitating cryptocurrency trading, and will strengthen monitoring of risks from such activities.

“Crypto markets are in an extremely frail state overall, and these sorts of downswings speak to that; there’s a degree of panic in the air,” said Joseph Edwards, head of research at cryptocurrency broker Enigma Securities.

“Crypto continues to exist in a grey area of legality across the board in China.”

Shares in cryptocurrency and blockchain-related firms also came under pressure with U.S. listed miners Riot Blockchain , Marathon Digital and Bit Digital slipping between 4.1 per cent and 5.1 per cent in premarket trading. China-focused SOS slipped 1.2 per cent while crypto exchange Coinbase Global fell 2.7 per cent.

Earlier this year, Chinese authorities said they would crack down on cryptocurrency mining, sparking a massive sell-off of bitcoin and other coins.

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China’s Ant highlights distinction between NFTs and cryptocurrencies, BFSI News, ET BFSI

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Shanghai: China‘s Ant Group on Wednesday sought to draw a distinction between non-fungible tokens (NFTs) available on its platforms and cryptocurrencies currently subject to a crackdown by Beijing, after users expressed confusion.

Ant, the Jack Ma-controlled fintech group, put on sale two NFT-backed app images via its payment platform Alipay and all the items quickly sold out on Wednesday. This, when China has over the past month intensified a campaign against cryptocurrency trading and mining, part of efforts to fend off financial risks.

Ant’s adoption of non-fungible tokens caused confusion on social media where they were linked to virtual currencies such as bitcoin, which have the same underlying technology. “Alipay selling NFT products. Isn’t that illegal transaction?” one comment posted on Twitter-like Weibo said.

Ant, which is undergoing a government-ordered revamp restructuring after the collapse of its mega-IPO last year, on Wednesday said non-fungible tokens and cryptocurrencies were two different things. “NFT is not interchangeable, nor divisible, making it different by nature from cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin,” said a spokesperson at AntChain, the Ant unit that develops blockchain-based technology solutions.

He said that NFTs can be used to create a unique signature for digital assets.

Winston Ma, NYU Law School adjunct professor, also highlighted the confusion over the nature of NFTs.
“Are NFTs virtual currencies? Or, are NFTs certificates for virtual currencies? And more importantly, are NFTs securities? These are the questions that no major digital economy’s legislature has ever answered,” Ma said.

In addition to app images, NFT digital artworks are also auctioned on Ant’s Alipay platform. AntChain said in product agreements that it provides blockchain technologies to NFT products.



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