China’s latest crackdown has forced miners, cryptocurrency traders, and local crypto firms to gradually halt operations targeting Chinese users.

In the latest developments, stated Chinese journalist Wu Blockchain reported that due to regulatory changes, the trading platform BitMart has decided to suspend contract trading services for all users.

All previous transactions can be closed, but new ones cannot be opened.

Thus, new users cannot open contract services (futures) because they will not be able to transfer cryptocurrencies to contract wallets.

After the Chinese crackdown, China’s state-sponsored media heavily criticized trading in highly leveraged futures contracts.

There are four major Chinese platforms that provide global futures trading services and are active outside of China: “Huobi”, “Bybit”, “OKEx” and “Binance”.

Read:WikiLeaks Holds Over $46 Million in Bitcoin

Reportedly, Huobi was heavily influenced by China policy and completely banned new users from opting for the futures trading feature.

In a recent blog post published last Thursday, May 27, trading platform OKEx indicated that the latest campaign is only meant to establish strict policies.

The same blog indicated that Chinese users can continue to hold and use cryptocurrencies.

Lennox Lai, CEO of OKEx, said:

China has not banned the ownership of cryptocurrencies by users.

He added:

China will be tougher on trading and mining operations, but people can still use and hold cryptocurrencies in general, including Chinese citizens.

In addition, some trading platforms such as OKEx have moved and cut back on some services and products offered only to Chinese citizens.

As the “OKEx” platform reported the following:

Any changes resulting from this notice do not affect non-Chinese nationals, and will only affect users who reside in China and use the Chinese currency “Renminbi”.

Chinese traders turn to OTC platforms:

According to a recent Bloomberg report, a large number of Chinese traders have flocked to over-the-counter (OTC) trading platforms.

Read:Bitcoin price drops to less than 48 thousand dollars and its market value falls by more than 100 billion dollars

A recent Bloomberg report notes the following:

China has escalated its crackdown after a frenzied rise in bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies over the past six months, adding to the Communist Party’s long-standing fears about the possibility of fraud, money laundering and trading losses by individual investors.

Read:“Blockfolio” launches an application for trading cryptocurrencies without fees … details here

However, the hard-to-track nature of transactions on local OTC platforms and peer-to-peer networks means that it will be extremely difficult for authorities to enforce a wholesale ban.

Thus, Bloomberg notes, the latest campaign is likely to have less of an impact in terms of any decline in Chinese purchasing power.

Read also:

A British Bank Bans Cryptocurrency Deposits And Explains Why!

Ripple blocks SEC from accessing its legal records on XRP