China Shutters Social Media Accounts of Crypto Influencers

China is moving forward with its anti-crypto attitude. It has now shut down the social media accounts of several bitcoin and cryptocurrency influencers as a means of stopping people from learning about and investing in digital currencies.

China Makes Another Anti-Bitcoin Maneuver

China has long had an up-and-down relationship with bitcoin. While the country has always been a hotspot for bitcoin and digital currency activity, government officials and regulators have never been kind to the world’s number one digital currency by market cap. For example, 2017 saw the nation shutting down all initial coin offerings (ICOs), claiming that they were fraudulent and open doorways to financial crime. From there, China took steps to close all crypto exchanges.

Now, China is looking to end all bitcoin mining within the nation, along with other forms of crypto activity. The move has sparked criticism from executives with companies such as Canaan Creative, one of the largest mining corporations in the world. Stationed in China, Canaan Creative put out a statement saying that the country is making a big mistake, claiming that it would soon fall behind its neighbors in terms of technology use and understanding. In addition, it said that bitcoin mining brought jobs and revenue to China’s economy.

These complaints were apparently not enough to get China to listen, as it is now taking steps to stop bitcoin influencers from spreading the word about cryptocurrency. The country is home to a social media platform known as Weibo, which presently features many crypto heads posting data, videos, and messages about the growing digital currency space. Several of these accounts were mysteriously shut down over the weekend, with Weibo later putting out a statement saying the accounts were in serious violation of the company’s rules and regulations.

The move led to another massive bitcoin drop, with the world’s number one digital currency falling to about $35,000 per unit, though at press time, the asset has added an additional $1,000 to its price.

This Has Happened Before

Despite the harshness of the move, various influencers affected by the account halts said that they were not surprised, and to an extent, even expected to have their pages hit given how stringent China has become when it comes to crypto regulations. China has also taken hits at Weibo accounts delving in crypto information in the past, with accounts belonging to Binance co-founder Yi He and TRON founder Justin Sun having been suspended prior due to regulatory concerns.

Beijing has been particularly strict when it comes to mining regulation, saying that it would like the entire country of China to be fully carbon neutral by the year 2060. Presently, China accounts for close to 70 percent of the world’s bitcoin mining operations per data from the Cambridge Center for Alternative Finance.

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