China Bitcoin Exchange Executives Banned from Leaving State: Reports
@xiti - The regulator has banned Chinese bitcoin exchanges executives from leaving the country while officials continue to crack down on crypto trade and potentially prepare to launch digitally controlled digital tokens.
According to a Beijing News report, Chinese bitcoin exchanges executives are banned from traveling abroad to ensure that they "cooperate with investigations" in the cryptocurrency trade, which has now been ruled illegally. It seems that travel restrictions extend to executives of all Chinese bitcoin exchanges, but the details remain unclear.
According to a harsh translation of the report, all exchange, stockholder, and operator executives must remain in China to assist investigators during the "cleaning period":
Many sources of information have revealed that currently various bitcoin trading platforms [executives] are not allowed to leave Beijing to cooperate in the investigation. In accordance with regulatory requirements, shareholders of the trading platform, actual controllers, ... and executives must fully cooperate with relevant work in Beijing during this cleaning period.
The Australian Financial Review quotes a source close to Huobi who says founder-must-be, Li Lin-stock exchange "reports to authorities and cooperates with their work at all times," although Quartz spoke with representatives from both Huobi and OKCoin who denied the knowledge of the ban.
The report adds to the development of China's increasingly comprehensive crackdown on crypto. What started as a ban on initial coin offers has expanded not only to all domestic book exchanges but also to peer-to-peer trading platforms such as BitKan. This is important because over-the-counter trade services are experiencing an important spike in yuan related trades within a week after the exchange ban. Although still unconfirmed, reports also appear indicating that the regulators will come after the next miners and ultimately seek to block Chinese citizens accessing foreign exchange and other bitcoin related sites.
Meanwhile, a researcher with links to China's central bank renewed calls to the government to adopt a state-backed crypto "under the auspices of the central bank as soon as possible," fueling speculation that a decentralized crackdown on crypto is a pretext for the country to launch own, centralized digital currency.