BREAKING: China Officially Declares All Crypto-Currency Illegal

BREAKING: China Officially Declares All Crypto-Currency Illegal—-The Genius Media Nigeria reports that China’s Central Bank, the People’s Bank of China, has declared that all crypto currency in the country is illegal.

TGM gathered that the Asian giant on Friday banned overseas crypto exchanges from providing services to investors in the country.

The global values of cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin have massively fluctuated over the past year partly due to Chinese regulations, which have sought to prevent speculation and money laundering.

This is part of its clampdown on crypto-currencies which began early this year.

“Virtual currency-related business activities are illegal financial activities,” the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) said in an online statement Friday, adding that offenders would be “investigated for criminal liability in accordance with the law.”

The notice bans all related financial activities involving cryptocurrencies, such as trading crypto, selling tokens, transactions involving virtual currency derivatives and “illegal fundraising”.

The central bank said that in recent years the “trading and speculation of Bitcoin and other virtual currencies have become widespread, disrupting economic and financial order, giving rise to money laundering, illegal fund-raising, fraud, pyramid schemes and other illegal and criminal activities.”

In June, Chinese officials said more than 1,000 people had been arrested for using the profits from crime to buy cryptocurrencies.

Several Chinese provinces had already banned the operation of cryptocurrency mines since the start of this year, with one region accounting for eight percent of the computing power needed to run the global blockchain — a set of online ledgers to record bitcoin transactions.

Bitcoin values tumbled in May on the back of a warning by Beijing to investors against speculative trading in cryptocurrencies.