WeChat (微信) is starting to see its first wave of defectors: Chinese cryptocurrency aficionados.
The country’s crackdown on bitcoin and WeChat, the nation’s dominant messaging app, is sending users of both to Telegram and other encrypted services banned in the country.
With administrators personally liable for what is said on groups they run, users of bitcoin exchanges OKCoin (幣行), Huobi (火幣) and BTCChina (比特幣中國) are migrating to services beyond the Chinese government’s reach. On Telegram they are popping up to discuss everything from how to transfer their digital tokens overseas to more effective ways to protect privacy, to initial coin offerings.
The new rules on message groups have delivered a rare setback for WeChat, which permeates the daily life of 963 million users and underpins Shenzhen-based Tencent Holdings Ltd’s (騰訊) US$400 billion market valuation. The crackdown has converged with a tightening on the cryptocurrency business by the government to contain financial risks as consumers pile into a highly speculative market that has grown rapidly this year.
Chinese authorities have ordered Beijing-based cryptocurrency exchanges to cease trading and immediately notify users of their closure.
Exchanges were also told to stop allowing new user registrations as of Friday, according to a government notice signed by the Beijing city group in charge of overseeing Internet finance risks that was circulated online.
Platforms should also tell the government by Wednesday how they will allow users to make withdrawals in a risk-free manner and handle funds to ensure that investors’ interests are protected, said the notice, which was also reported by the Chinese state-run newspaper Securities Times.
“It’s partially due to fears of bitcoin oversight, but I think it has more to do with the new rules on WeChat,” said bitcoin.com general manager Jake Smith, who manages a 500-member English-language group on WeChat.
Smith, a US national, said he has been asked by another Chinese group owner whether he could replace the person as administrator, due to beliefs that foreigners are exempt from the new regulations.
Tencent spokeswoman Jane Yip did not respond to a request for comment.
The crackdown on bitcoin has seen BTCChina, Shanghai’s largest exchange, say it would halt trading by the end of this month.
Some over-the-counter platforms, including those operated by Bitkan (幣看), suspended services this week.
Cryptocurrency groups on WeChat have been quick to disband before mushrooming overnight on Telegram. While there are no figures on how many people have done so, at least 30 such groups have appeared, with some already attracting more than 1,000 users in a single room, mostly speaking Chinese.
OKCoin, Huobi and BTCChina’s telegram groups are not officially run by the companies, according to the notices.
Chinese authorities on Sept. 7 said that beginning next month, creators of online groups are to be held responsible for the behavior of members.
Already, 40 people from one WeChat group have been disciplined for spreading petition letters, while a man has been arrested who complained about police raids, reports in official Chinese media said.
While Telegram is officially blocked in China, users can access the service through virtual private networks (VPN). As a foreign encrypted platform, it is somewhat beyond the grasp of Chinese authorities.
Telegram was founded by Pavel Duroz, a Russian entrepreneur known for his advocacy of Internet freedom. In June, he said the service would be registered with Russia’s state communications watchdog, after it was threatened with a ban in the country.
WeChat, along with Tencent’s QQ service, has to adhere to Chinese government rules. That includes censoring sensitive topics, filtering images, deleting private and public accounts without user consent and storing information sent via its platforms for at least six months on its servers.
After the July death of Liu Xiaobo (劉曉波), memorial images of the long-imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize-winning writer were scrubbed from WeChat and Sina Corp’s (新浪) Weibo (微博).
“If you are a group chat leader you have two choices, either you are going to super-actively monitor the group, because your livelihood is at stake, or you’re going to delete the group,” said Lokman Tsui (徐樂文), an assistant professor at the School of Journalism and Communication at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. “It’s a chilling effect.”
China is also cracking down on VPNs, which route traffic through servers outside the country, to stamp out access to foreign news sites and services. Apple Inc is removing many VPNs from its Chinese app store to comply with local rules.
Additional reporting by Reuters
‘SWASTICAR’: Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s close association with Donald Trump has prompted opponents to brand him a ‘Nazi’ and resulted in a dramatic drop in sales Demonstrators descended on Tesla Inc dealerships across the US, and in Europe and Canada on Saturday to protest company chief Elon Musk, who has amassed extraordinary power as a top adviser to US President Donald Trump. Waving signs with messages such as “Musk is stealing our money” and “Reclaim our country,” the protests largely took place peacefully following fiery episodes of vandalism on Tesla vehicles, dealerships and other facilities in recent weeks that US officials have denounced as terrorism. Hundreds rallied on Saturday outside the Tesla dealership in Manhattan. Some blasted Musk, the world’s richest man, while others demanded the shuttering of his
ADVERSARIES: The new list includes 11 entities in China and one in Taiwan, which is a local branch of Chinese cloud computing firm Inspur Group The US added dozens of entities to a trade blacklist on Tuesday, the US Department of Commerce said, in part to disrupt Beijing’s artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced computing capabilities. The action affects 80 entities from countries including China, the United Arab Emirates and Iran, with the commerce department citing their “activities contrary to US national security and foreign policy.” Those added to the “entity list” are restricted from obtaining US items and technologies without government authorization. “We will not allow adversaries to exploit American technology to bolster their own militaries and threaten American lives,” US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick said. The entities
Minister of Finance Chuang Tsui-yun (莊翠雲) yesterday told lawmakers that she “would not speculate,” but a “response plan” has been prepared in case Taiwan is targeted by US President Donald Trump’s reciprocal tariffs, which are to be announced on Wednesday next week. The Trump administration, including US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent, has said that much of the proposed reciprocal tariffs would focus on the 15 countries that have the highest trade surpluses with the US. Bessent has referred to those countries as the “dirty 15,” but has not named them. Last year, Taiwan’s US$73.9 billion trade surplus with the US
Prices of gasoline and diesel products at domestic gas stations are to fall NT$0.2 and NT$0.1 per liter respectively this week, even though international crude oil prices rose last week, CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) and Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) said yesterday. International crude oil prices continued rising last week, as the US Energy Information Administration reported a larger-than-expected drop in US commercial crude oil inventories, CPC said in a statement. Based on the company’s floating oil price formula, the cost of crude oil rose 2.38 percent last week from a week earlier, it said. News that US President Donald Trump plans a “secondary
RSS