Amid China’s crackdown on cryptocurrency trading, Chinese cryptocurrency exchanges Huobi and OKcoin are shutting down their respective subsidiaries in Beijing and informed the investors to liquidate their account within the next 45 days.
Detail:
Beijing Huobi Tianxia Network Technology Co applied last Thursday to cancel the company’s registration, while OKCoin also informed their users to liquidate assets after publishing announcement that its subsidiary Beijing Lekuda Network Technology would be shutdown in order to comply with China’s scrutiny of cryptocurrency trading.
Following the announcement, Huobi Technology Holdings, a Hong Kong enterprise of the Huobi organization, saw its share prices dropped by 20 percent today.
In fact, Huobi’s Beijing subsidiary had remained a non-operational entity for years and did not bring in much revenue.
“Beijing subsidiary was canceled because this entity has not had any business operations,” a Huobi representative,”
Context:
Huobi, China’s second largest cryptocurrency exchange by volume, continually downsized its businesses to comply with China’s crypto crackdown and new regulations.
In May, Huobi has suspended bitcoin mining service and sales of mining equipment in mainland China.
Then, in June, the cryptocurrency exchange halted crypto derivative trading service for users in China.
Huobi, which was founded in China in 2013, said “we won’t provide service or products of high risk to Chinese users, in response to China’s crackdown on cryptocurrencies, warning users who violated these restrictions expose at risk of losing their accounts.
China has criticized cryptocurrency for potential to enable untraceable transactions and illegal activities such as money laundering and tax evasion.
The People's Bank of China held talks with a number of Chinese banks and payment institutions on cryptocurrency trading speculation, asking them to stop providing service for digital asset trading, cut relevant payment links