Things continue to go from bad to worse in China as the local police have now arrested more than 1,000 individuals based on charges of money laundering and fraud. Most of the people that had been apprehended were cryptocurrency traders themselves, which only serves to further damage the already controversial reputation of the crypto industry.
Chinese authorities had also recently banned BTC mining in the country, which had constituted about 75% of the world’s total BTC mining hash rate, and had also ceased mining operations within the Xinjiang region of the country.
The situation keeps worsening
It had been announced yesterday that the local authorities have managed to apprehend a group of individuals who have allegedly been operating a criminal gang of sorts. This gang, as per the announcement, has been utilizing cryptocurrency for the purposes of money laundering in an attempt to bypass the agents of law enforcement. In related news, the authorities were also able to successfully prevent the funds from being transferred elsewhere as the suspects had been caught via the card freeze operation.
Since the beginning of last year, Chinese authorities have been taking drastic and proactive measures in a continued effort towards fighting against money laundering and various other illegal activities prevalent within China. As such, the telecommunications and cryptocurrency industries have been prime targets for a while now. These efforts had also culminated in a kind of ‘freeze wave,’ where banks had been forced to freeze the cards of users who had ties to cryptocurrency-based transactions and activities. This had affected more than 70% of the total BTC miners in the country.
Furthermore, in addition to arresting more than 1,000 suspects, nearly 170 criminal gangs had also been successfully dismantled by the authorities.
BTC struggling in China but being accepted elsewhere
Needless to say, the FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) caused by the Chinese authorities’ recent actions has led to an abrupt halt as far as cryptocurrencies may be concerned in the country. However, BTC remains popular elsewhere, with El Salvador making history by becoming the 1st nation to consider Bitcoin as legal tender. Paraguay had also mentioned an upcoming project which would include both PayPal as well as Bitcoin.
So, while cryptocurrencies may be suffering in China, it is certainly not the end of the industry by any means. As of the time of this writing, BTC is trading at $36,451, which is indicative of a 6% increase since yesterday.
