China has long stood strong against the crypto community, raiding offices of crypto traders and closing down crypto related websites. In the past week, China has reaffirmed its anti-crypto stance, as it has ordered companies to shut down any accounts related to crypto promoting entities. WeChat closed down around eight social media profiles of prominent crypto companies, including Huobi. Accounts that were closed had been accused of promoting ICOs and crypto ‘hype’. It’s rumored that this might be a move to stifle crypto speculation in the country while the government works on regulations, as such companies continue to battle against the great firewall.
Baidu has joined on the rout against the crypto world by closing a number of crypto related forums. Baidu is the most popular search engine in China – often dubbed the Google of China. This move cements China’s anti-crypto stance as a hard policy that has been designed to wipe out crypto talk in the country.
Baidu Changing its Algorithms
Baidu works very similarly to Google, but it will now be changing its algorithms to filter out results related to crypto. It will also automatically rank crypto related sites lower in a bid to remove them from search engine result pages (SERPs). By reducing the ranking of crypto content will deter sites from wasting time writing such content, as it won’t show up in Baidu’s SERPs. This is one of the fastest ways for Baidu to filter out all crypto websites and comply with the new Chinese laws.
Alibaba Joining in
A subsidiary of the popular shopping site Alibaba runs a well-known payment app called Alipay. It has said that it will do its very best to limit money flowing through it that is used on crypto related activities. No matter whether that is paying for hosting of a crypto related website or deposits to crypto exchanges, the limits will in many ways be blanket.
China Continues to Tighten its Grip
The Chinese government is continuing to tighten its grip over the web with its latest round of crypto culling. In what is definitely chalked up as a loss for net neutrality, this ban on commercial crypto activity has certainly put a dent in Chinese crypto enthusiasts plans. It is now harder than ever for Chinese crypto investors to read crypto news and trade their cryptos. In fact, due to this crypto culling, Chinese investors are looking to cash out of their crypto holdings in favor of overseas real estate – with America being the top choice of destination.
Despite the red dragon’s ever tightening grip on cryptocurrencies, activity related to cryptos and blockchain is actually soaring in the country. Crypto enthusiasts in China are finding ways around the great firewall by using VPNs to gain access to foreign content. If Chinese investors in crypto were to suddenly disappear overnight, it would spell disaster for crypto markets, as they would most likely see red for a number of days. While there is a good chance the Chinese government are working on their own crypto regulation, it could be some time before we see crypto legalized in China.
