Bitcoin fell below $ 30,000 on Tuesday for the first time since early January, adding to yesterday’s losses, after the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) urged banks and companies China’s largest payments agency to crack down on cryptocurrency operations, in the latest tightening of restrictions in the sector by Beijing.
The world’s largest cryptocurrency plunged more than 7% to $ 29,332, its worst since Jan.1. Its fall also drags other smaller cryptocurrencies, such as ether.
On Monday, bitcoin fell more than 10%, its worst performance in more than a month, accumulating a 50% decline from its high of $ 63,410.29 in mid-April.
The Chinese government is carrying out a campaign to curb the bitcoin mining industry, which is what that market calls the computers that make the cryptocurrency work, decentralized, approving transactions and creating new units.
According to former cryptocurrency producers, energy providers in China’s Sichuan province were ordered to stop supplying electricity to those companies before Sunday.
“Concerns about the Chinese government’s tightening measures and fear that the acceptance of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies will be delayed due to their impact on the environment are weighing on the market,” said Fawad Razaqzada, analyst at ThinkMarkets.
Since 2017, cryptocurrency operations have been effectively banned in China, but overseas-based over-the-counter (OTC) platforms have emerged to receive payments from people based in the country and buy cryptocurrencies on their behalf. .
“It basically says that now OTC transactions are not legitimate … banks don’t allow us to transfer money for cryptocurrency purchases and sales,” said Bobby Lee, head of cryptocurrency wallet app Ballet and former CEO of BTC China, China’s first bitcoin trader.
Following the PBOC statement on Monday, banks such as the Agricultural Bank of China and Alipay, Ant Group’s ubiquitous payment platform, claimed they will step up monitoring to root out crypto transactions.
Ether, the second-largest cryptocurrency, which tends to keep pace with bitcoin, was down more than 6% at $ 1,773, its lowest in a month.
With information from Reuters and AFP.
