Pan Gongsheng, vice governor of the central bank, said, to prevent market risk, the government would apply more strict regulation to end all cryptocurrency trading-related activities and services. The news comes via a Reuters report today, citing an internal memo reviewed by the news agency.
While it's not yet clear whether the reported memo will become immediate policy, the news indicates the continuing severe stance taken by China's top regulators towards curbing cryptocurrency speculation and lowering perceived financial risk in the country.
According to the report, Pan said in the memo that a wider ban should extend to services and activities including individual or institutional market-makers, centralized trading platforms, guarantors, or settlement providers like online cryptocurrency wallets.
Back in early September, Chinese regulators banned initial coin offerings (ICOs) in the country and also subsequently required domestic exchanges to suspend crypto-to-fiat currency order-book trading services.
Following the restrictions, major exchanges in China have shifted business focus to over-the-counter (OTC) and overseas crypto-to-crypto trading – services that are currently still available for residents in China.
The report indicates that Pan is now seeking collaboration from both central and local authorities to investigate and subsequently block any domestic or foreign platforms that allow investors in China to participate in cryptocurrency trading.
https://www.coindesk.com/pboc-official-calls-for-wider-ban-on-chinese-crypto-trading-report/
This will be very bad for the people living in China if Pan Gongsheng will succeed, but I think he will not. Too much capital is invested by Chinese people into different crypto currencies and I'm sure some people from the Chinese government are among those people too. They just won't allow that to happen regardless of however hard Pan Gongsheng will try. He is seeking collaboration from central and local authorities but in fact he will hardly find that kind of collaboration in most cases.