Five Exchanges In China Shut Down In Perceived Crackdown

In the latest crypto news, we can see that at least five exchanges in China have halted or chosen to terminate their operations this month – in an official response to the perceived redoubling of Beijing and its anti-crypto stance.

One of them was the exchange operator Bitsoda, which informed the public about its decision to terminate the services on November 23. The news followed with Akdex also announcing its decision to shut down on November 24, as well as Idax which cited that the exchange is closing due to the Chinese government policy as the basis for its decision to prevent domestic clients from using its service.

Among the five exchanges which shut down is also Btuex, which revealed on November 25 that it would halt the services immediately and reopen in the future – but only for an overseas clientele.

Before this, we saw that on November 4 the crypto exchange Biss had also announced that it was “actively cooperating” with investigations into its operations and its plans were to resume the services as soon as possible.

Ever since this date, at least five exchanges in China closed their operations. The Bitcoin news also showed that authorities reportedly arrested 10 suspects connected with the Biss exchange. While information surrounding the arrests is still not officially confirmed, reports show that regulatory authorities found Biss and its services to be in violation of the Chinese capital controls.

In times when at least five exchanges in China are halting or terminating their services, Bloomberg reports that these recent developments represent “the biggest cleanup of the sector” ever since the historic rout by Beijing in September 2017.

The report also shows that 20 of the top 50 global crypto exchanges are based in the Asia-Pacific region and account for an estimated 40% of the total Bitcoin transactions in the first half of 2019. Chainalysis confirmed this and agreed that the lion’s share of exchanges are based in China.

Beijing and its reaffirmation of its hard stance has been interpreted by many as an attempt to prevent what it perceives to be the speculative excess associated with crypto trading. The news that five exchanges are shutting down could develop to a more strict situation in the near future.