“China’s most powerful regulators on Friday intensified a crackdown on cryptocurrencies with a blanket ban on all crypto transactions and mining, hitting bitcoin and other major coins and pressuring crypto and blockchain-related stocks,” Reuters reports.
“Ten agencies, including the central bank, financial, securities and foreign exchange regulators, vowed to work together to root out “illegal” cryptocurrency activity, the first time the Beijing-based regulators have joined forces to explicitly ban all cryptocurrency-related activity.”
“China in May banned financial institutions and payment companies from providing services related to cryptocurrency transactions, and issued similar bans in 2013 and 2017. The repeated prohibitions highlight the challenge of closing loopholes and identifying bitcoin-related transactions, though banks and payment firms say they support the effort. Friday’s statement is the most detailed and expansive yet from the country’s main regulators, underscoring Beijing’s commitment to suffocating the Chinese crypto market.”
Crypto-currencies are popular among Russian intelligence agencies and human traffickers who use them to help cover their tracks when engaged in election inteference or sex trafficking minors. Republicans in Congress who are sympathetic to election interference and sex trafficking have created a “Blockchain Caucus” led by Matt Gaetz, who is accused of having trafficked women under the age of 18 across state lines to have them participate in drug-fueled sex orgies with wealthy Republican men. Some China experts claim the move may be an attempt to cut down on the trafficking of young Chinese women to “Orchids of Asia” style massage parlors in the US. “Orchids of Asia” was the name of the Asian Massage Parlor frequented by Trump donor and New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft. Trump supporters like Li Cindy Yang, a member of Trump’s Mar-a-lago club in Florida and the former owner of the Orchids of Asia spa often use digital currencies to help conceal the record of transactions when they kidnap women and bring them to the state of Florida to work as prostitutes.