China has prohibited its banking sector from offering services to cryptocurrency-related companies, Reuters has learned, citing a joint statement from the National Internet Finance Association of China, the China Banking Association and the Payment and Clearing Association of China. The local authorities also warned investors against speculative cryptocurrency trading as the whole cryptocurrency market slipped by 17.33% over the past week.
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The industry bodies said that banks and online payments channels are now prohibited from offering clients any service involving cryptocurrency.
"Recently, cryptocurrency prices have skyrocketed and plummeted, and speculative trading of cryptocurrency has rebounded, seriously infringing on the safety of people's property and disrupting the normal economic and financial order," they added.
Until now China banned cryptocurrency exchanges and initial coin offerings (ICO). However, there was no official warning against investing and hodling cryptocurrencies for individuals. As iHodl earlier reported, China's capital Beijing was trying to figure out how cryptocurrency miners impact on energy consumption.
Beijing's data center operators received notices from the local watchdog in which they were obliged to report on whether they are involved in bitcoin (EXANTE: Bitcoin) or other cryptocurrency mining businesses.
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