- China’s crypto ban has now spread to crypto metrics sites
- CoinGecko, CoinMarketCap and TradingView can now only be accessed via a VPN
- Alibaba will also stop selling cryptocurrency mining equipment from next month
China’s crypto ban has spread further than ever before, with crypto metrics sites like Coingecko and CoinMarketCap blocked by the country’s firewall and Alibaba no longer selling crypto mining machines. While the crypto ban is in many ways just an extension of China’s existing outlook on cryptocurrencies, it seems that, as with the mining ban earlier this year, the reach is broader than it has been so far, which has generally been reflected in weakness in the market.
China Crypto Ban Hitting Harder Than Expected
China’s most recent extension of its crypto ban came on Friday, with the government declaring that all cryptocurrency transactions were being treated as illegal. This merely adds another layer to the existing bans on cryptocurrency exchanges and payment processors and the ban on banks accepting funds from cryptocurrency sources.
However, the reaction from China-based entities has suggested that the most recent announcement is more than it first seemed, with Huobi forced to stop all new registrations from Chinese nationals and kick all existing Chinese users off the platform by year’s end.
The ban seems to have extended further however, with reports that the great firewall of China is now blocking coin metrics sites such as Coingecko, CoinMarketCap, and even TradingView, with VPNs needed to access them:
Also tradingview.
— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) September 28, 2021
Bitcoin Struggling as Alibaba Cuts Mining Equipment
This development comes after retail giant Alibaba announced that from October 8 it will stop sales of cryptocurrency mining hardware:
“[A]fter thorough evaluation, taking into account the instability of laws and regulations on virtual currencies and relevant products in various international markets, Alibaba.com will prohibit the sale of virtual currency miners in addition to the prohibition against selling virtual currencies such as Bitcoin, Litecoin, BeaoCoin, QuarkCoin, and Ethereum, which include but are not limited to: 1) Hardware and software used to obtain virtual currencies such as Bitcoin miners; 2) Tutorials, strategies, and software for obtaining virtual currencies such as tutorials on mining.”
These two developments are indeed signs that, much like the mining ban in May, the impact of this crypto ban extension is more widespread than had been previously thought. This negativity has contributed to weakness in the cryptocurrency markets, with Bitcoin looking sluggish after its $5,000 drop on the day of the announcement.
