Recently, I heard that China banned holding cryptocurrency and cryptocurrency transactions, so does that mean that having cryptocurrency in China would be a criminal offense? Moreover, why create such a ban in the first place?
regarding the ban topic, as I know:
- the authority think the blockchain tech. is good as far as
NO tokens or virtual currencies are issued! (as it could be useful for some sectors in
some scenarios or cases, especially in Fintech. they are considering issue national DCEP using blockchain tech.) so that means, they are pro-
blockchain tech. but against tokens, coins issued in any form... so the ICO, IFO, STO etc. in China are all banned and considered illegal. they banned
those
because partially they can, now even some foreign entities issuing ICO is banning the participation of Chinese (and US?) citizens alike
with KYC proceedings. but it's still a gray area here, if some people want, they still can participate certain foreign ICOs...
- they banned the cypto-exchanges operating in China and banned all financial institutions from supporting the traders buying/selling cyptos directly,
because partially they can. the banks, including weChat pay, Alipay etc. if they find out or are suspicious that you have using your bank account
buying or selling cryptos, your account will be frozen without any prior notice. but I said "partially" because there are now over hundred or thousand
global exchanges and even DEX people can use, they blockade some domains but cann't block all...
- they didn't ban the people to buy/sell cryptos via per-to-per (or OTC), to own and withhold cryptos, to transact from personal wallet to another
because they can not! would somebody tell me how can a person, an entity, or even a country to ban this through open internet? by suvillence
of everybody's crypto-wallet? I think the authority would do it if they can, but unfortunately they can not. I think until now there are also lots of
Chinese prozessing cryptos, they can't just claim it illegal and arrest those people on this!
Bassically what they can do the best is keep rolling out statements, policies, warnings or even some real actions (like to cleasen illegal local exchanges）to panic those who own cryptos and help push negative sentiment to the market and drag crypto-price down, because if people
lose their investment, they tend to drop out and lose interest to cryptos, and that sometimes works like now...