Decentralized wallet imToken is restricting access to some of the services it offers for users in China, in the wake of the latest ban imposed by top Chinese authorities last Friday.
Fast facts
- The company has restricted users in China from accessing and using third-party financial applications, including those from decentralized crypto exchanges, stake mining and liquidity mining, as well as other decentralized finance (DeFi) applications such as lending and derivatives, imToken said on Wednesday.
- Within China, where digital tokens are defined as virtual commodities, users can hold tokens through the wallet, but “must be careful about certain blockchain and smart contract technology, in essence speculation, fraud, pyramid schemes, money laundering and other illegal acts,” imToken warned.
- The imToken team — the company has offices in Singapore and Hangzhou, according to its website — is just one in a series of crypto-related companies to recently cease some services to mainland China users following the latest ban.
- The recent notice jointly issued by 10 agencies, including China’s central bank and judicial, public security and banking authorities, signals “a consensus has been reached by multiple government organs,” said Zhang Xiaoxiao, founder of ChainAudit — a consultancy to China’s public security departments on economic criminal activities — in an interview with Forkast.News.
- In addition to banning all crypto-related activities, including crypto mining, the notice specifies that both people and companies providing services to overseas exchanges could be subject to investigation by Chinese law enforcement.