The Weibo accounts of major cryptocurrency exchanges serving Chinese investors, Huobi, OKEx, and Binance, have all been blocked on Thursday, which could signal that cryptocurrency investors may have to start worrying that something bad may be about to happen next.
According to thepaper.cn, Huobi, and OKEx confirmed the fact that their accounts were blocked, and said they were not sure of the exact reason.
The home page of the banned Weibo accounts shows "This account is now unavailable for viewing due to complaints about violations of laws and regulations and the relevant provisions of the Weibo Community Convention."
The convention defines the following types of behavior and information as violations: harmful information on current affairs, illegal information, inaccurate information, infringement of others' personal rights and intellectual property rights, fraudulent information, illegal marketing information, cheating behavior, and spamming.
The three major Chinese cryptocurrency exchanges had their Weibo accounts blocked, which is not a good sign, thepaper.cn quoted a crypto practitioner as saying.
"The policy of banning traffic to exchanges based outside of China has remained the same," the report quoted another crypto industry practitioner as saying.
"For example, previously Sun Yuchen (founder of Chinese cryptocurrency exchange TRX) and He Yi (founder of Binance) were so high-profile that their accounts were blocked. But Huobi and OKEx are fine. "He said.
"This time Huobi and OKEx were also blocked, which shows that the regulation has been tightened a bit." The source said, adding, "It seems like Bitcoin has been a little too hot lately."
However, as of press time, the Weibo accounts of Huobi's founder Du Jun, OKEx's CEO JayHao and Binance's founder Zhao Changpeng have not been blocked.
Huobi, OKEx (formerly OKEx), and Binance were once the three largest domestic digital currency exchanges, which have moved overseas since 2018.
Since late October 2020, Bitcoin's insane price increase has sparked widespread concern, with the cryptocurrency's price rising as high as over $57,000 on Thursday.