The People's Bank of China (PBoC) issued a statement urging investors not to take risks trading cryptocurrencies and participating in ICO.
The statement was published by the Shanghai branch of the bank. The document calls on investors not to participate in a token sale of foreign startups and "to avoid the speculative trade with cryptocurrencies". In China ICO is identified as an illegal criminal activity — the regulator claims that public sale of tokens is fraud.
The Bank admitted that Chinese citizens continue to carry out transactions with virtual currencies in "offshore areas" and promised to fight it.
In late August, the Internet Finance Association of China invited users to complain about ICOs.
WHY IS IT IMPORTANT?
- A year ago China banned ICOs. The report says that during this time the share of internal transactions with cryptocurrencies fell from 90% to 5% "effectively avoiding the cryptocurrency bubble caused by a sharp increase of digital assets in the second half of 2017".
- In August, the authorities reported that they found 124 sites using foreign IPs and promised to block them. A few days ago it became known that already banned crypto exchanges are still working with Chinese citizens.