Taiwan has blocked the Web sites of Coinbase Global Inc and Kalshi Inc over suspected election betting, weeks before local polls that will test support for President William Lai’s (賴清德) government.
A New Taipei City court authorized the Taiwanese communications regulator and Internet registry to bar domestic access to the platforms, according to a ruling seen by Bloomberg News. Some Coinbase users in Taiwan reported being unable to access the site since Wednesday.
The Criminal Investigation Bureau, which sought the order, said in response to questions from Bloomberg that the Web sites were suspected of violating the Public Officials Election and Recall Act (公職人員選舉罷免法). The law prohibits operating gambling for profit based on the outcome of an election or recall.
Photo: Reuters
Coinbase and Kalshi didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
The bureau said it requested the restrictions to protect election integrity and prevent “overseas interference,” without giving further details. Taiwanese authorities have separately warned that money from mainland China could enter the island through underground financial channels and be used to influence elections.
The government has stepped up scrutiny of illicit financial flows ahead of the Nov. 28 vote, including underground gambling operations. Authorities haven’t alleged that Coinbase or Kalshi handled funds from China.
China’s Taiwan Affairs Office didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment sent outside normal office hours.
Taiwan is among the jurisdictions that criminalize election wagering. Under a 2023 amendment to the election act, bettors can face as long as six months in prison, while gambling operators can receive up to five years.
Authorities have increasingly targeted election wagering on prediction markets. Polymarket, the main rival to Kalshi, has also been blocked in Taiwan. Cryptocurrencies are often used to place bets on such platforms.
Taiwanese voters will choose local officials ranging from mayors and city councilors to village chiefs. The elections will be the first island-wide electoral test for Lai since he took office in 2024 and could offer an early indication of the political landscape ahead of the 2028 presidential election.
INFRINGEMENT: The investigation comes after a complaint from Vicor Corp, with the company seeking a limited exclusion order as well as cease-and-desist orders, the ITA said The US International Trade Commission (USITC) has launched a Section 337 investigation naming Taiwanese technology companies, including Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海), Delta Electronics Inc (台達電) and Quanta Computer Inc (廣達), as respondents. The Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) pledged assistance if needed. The USITC said on Friday in a statement that it had voted to institute an investigation under Section 337 of the US Tariff Act of 1930 into certain vertical power delivery systems, related components and computing devices incorporating such systems. The investigation covers 20 companies from Taiwan, China, Germany and the US, the commission said, adding that it
PACKAGING PUSH: The chipmaker said that it would begin ramping up silicon interposer production in New York in the first half of 2028 to support AI systems GlobalFoundries Inc shares gained as much as 7 percent after the chip manufacturer announced a five-year, US$2 billion deal to provide US production capacity to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電). Under the agreement, announced on Thursday, GlobalFoundries is to help supply components known as silicon interposers. The US company is to rely on manufacturing at its facility in Malta, New York, and said it has the option to expand capacity “as customer demand grows.” An interposer is a small layer of silicon that sits between a chip and its packaging. It is home to the wires that carry electronic signals and
A man charged along with Super Micro Computer Inc co-founder Yih-Shyan “Wally” Liaw (廖益賢) of conspiring to send cutting-edge chips to China in violation of US export controls pleaded guilty, court documents said. Ting-Wei “Willy” Sun (孫廷瑋), a former outside contractor described by US authorities as a “fixer” who allegedly aided in the sales, pleaded guilty on Thursday at a hearing in federal court in New York as part of an agreement with prosecutors, court filings showed. Prosecutors claimed the men were part of a scheme to send Nvidia Corp-powered servers to an unnamed Southeast Asian company and then divert them to
Microsoft Corp chief executive officer Satya Nadella said companies should treat powerful artificial intelligence (AI) models as potential insider threats, assume they could be compromised and create an “emergency brake” system to prevent agentic models from going rogue. Nadella said that those deploying advanced AI should not rely on assurances from model makers. “We must assume a model is compromised and contain it from the start,” Nadella wrote on Saturday in a post on X. “Think of it like an emergency brake. An authorized person should always be able to pause or shut down a model mid-task.” The statement comes as Anthropic PBC
RSS