China continues its crackdown on certain illegal social organizations, as authorities shut down the website and social media accounts of the China Blockchain Application Center — a organization once led by some of the nation’s most prominent crypto industry leaders, state media China National Radio reported yesterday.
Fast facts
- The China Blockchain Application Center was founded in November 2015 in Beijing under the auspices of the China Museum of Finance, according to the introduction page of its 2019 China Blockchain Report. The organization grew rapidly since its establishment, setting up 10 branches within three years in China and internationally, including Hong Kong and New York.
- Its executive directors included leading figures in China’s crypto community, including the founder of cryptocurrency exchange OKEx, Mingxing Xu — also known as Star Xu — and Lin Li, founder of Huobi Group.
- Now the Chinese authorities — the Ministry of Civil Affairs, the Cyberspace Administration of China and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology — have shut down the organization’s website and social media accounts, according to the report.
- The shut down of the website didn’t come as a surprise as the authorities last month said that they had been looking into the organization because it “disrupted the management order of social organizations.”
- China has been actively cracking down on the cryptocurrency industry through measures that range from bans on crypto mining to the blocking of crypto exchanges’ social media accounts. But the development of blockchain technology has been made a national economic priority, even being written into the country’s 14th five-year plan.