The Weibo accounts of three major Bitcoin trading exchanges, Huobi, OKEx and Binance were deactivated on Thursday, triggering concerns over tightening regulation on cryptocurrency in China.
On Thursday, the account for Huobi, a Hong Kong-based Bitcoin trading platform was unable to be displayed. A Weibo statement shows that the account had "abnormal practices", and contains safety risks. The accounts for OKEx and Binance appear to be deleted.
A spokesperson from Huobi responded to Global Times on Thursday that the issue has just came to their attention, and that they are "actively communicating with Weibo" on the matter.
The price of Bitcoin dropped around 0.20 percent on Thursday after the news broke out. Price of Ethereum dropped about 4 percent.
In early 2020, China's financial authorities banned exchanges of cryptocurrency in the country. Major trading exchanges, including Bitcoin China, HUobi and OKCoin issued statements saying that they would suspend registration and top-up service in renminbi. Other crypto exchanges also issued similar statements.
In April 2019, China's top economic planning agency the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) released a catalogue of industries that it would support, restrict or eliminate. The catalogue listed "mining" activities for Bitcoin and other virtual currencies as an area to be "eliminated." It was later removed from the list.
In March, authorities in North China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, one of the areas with the most virtual currency mines, proposed that it will eliminate virtual currency mining by the end of April, according to local market regulator.