China’s stepped-up cryptocurrency ban continues to send shockwaves through the industry, as more crypto service providers are shutting their doors to users in China. BeePool and Tiger Brokers are among the latest to announce service suspensions.

Fast facts

  • China-based BeePool, the fourth-largest Ethereum mining pool in hashrate, said Tuesday that it has stopped registering new users and plans to stop server operations that connect to miners on Oct. 15. The company will apparently shut down, saying it will “exit orderly” in response to the latest regulatory policy.
  • That follows another major Ethereum mining pool Sparkpool’s Monday announcement, in which it said it will shut down all its services and operations for existing users, in China or abroad, starting from Thursday evening Asia time, in an effort to be “maximumly compliant with regulatory requirements.”
  • Meanwhile, Tiger Brokers, a Chinese online stock trading platform, will gradually stop allowing mainland users to open new crypto-related positions, but they can still close original positions, a customer service representative told Forkast.News.
  • Crypto mining has not just got China nervous. Some U.S. senators are proposing a bill that would task some U.S. government agencies to monitor how foreign countries use and mine virtual currencies.