The People’s Bank of China [PBoC] has reaffirmed that it would continue its policy of banning crypto speculation in a statement released from its meeting that was convened on 4th March 2022. The annual meeting led by PBoC has outlined regulatory priorities for the country’s financial market in the coming year.
The conference was attended by the heads of local banks, the National Internet Finance Association of China, foreign currency settlement, and clearing services providers, the top bank said in the statement.
China had executed one of the most comprehensive crackdowns on crypto trading and mining last year, forcing major crypto exchanges and mining companies to shut down their operations. Primarily led by the country’s top regulators who have instructed commercial banks to stop offering services to trading platforms such as over-the-counter trading desks and exchanges.
Those who refused to obey had their bank accounts blacklisted or canceled making crypto platforms unable to cash out on tokens or offer a fiat on-ramp to their users. In order to keep an eye on defaulters, the financial agencies also teamed up with the police to monitor and track cross-border transactions from trading platforms.
China’s share in Bitcoin transactions down by 80%
According to a report released by the Financial Stability Bureau of the Chinese central bank on 2nd March 2022 that discussed the impact of the crypto crackdown on the financial markets. The translated note claimed that all peer-to-peer exchanges in the country had been eradicated from 90% to 10%.
China has continued to maintain an outright aggressive stance against crypto use since the beginning. The first ban came in 2013 when it prohibited banks from handling Bitcoin transactions. It has carried out multiple crypto crackdowns and enforced numerous bans on crypto markets since 2013, but Chinese investors have always found a way to evade these bans.
Another ban on local cryptocurrency exchanges in 2017, forced them to shut their operations completely. The country later intensified its crypto crackdown efforts in 2021, when it carried out elaborate regulatory operations to eradicate Bitcoin mining from the country and by September 2021, it had deemed all digital asset transactions illegal.