China Update: Binance, OKEx, and Gate Kicks Out CNY & Existing Users, WeChat Blocks Searches, Mining Share Goes to Zero

Leading cryptocurrency exchange Binance announced on Wednesday that it is delisting the CNY trading zone, starting Dec. 31, 2021, in response to the regulatory requirements of the local government.

The exchange also said that it would also stop providing services to users in mainland China. Binance said it would “conduct an inventory of platform users,” and those from mainland China will have their accounts switched to the “withdrawal only” mode. It will notify the users by email seven days in advance.

Users based in China are now only able to withdraw, withdraw, redeem, and close positions.

Binance further said that they already withdrew from the Chinese mainland market in 2017 and do not engage in exchange business there.

“Binance has always attached great importance to compliance obligations and has always strictly complied with the relevant requirements of local regulatory agencies.”

Binance’s native token is unaffected by the news, trading at $460, up over 17.5% in the past 24-hours due to the announcement of a $1 billion incentive program to grow the Binance Smart Chain ecosystem on Tuesday.

Following Binance, another big crypto exchange OKEx issued a statement. Like Binance, OKEx said it has not been engaging in the Chinese market since 2017, and their site isn’t accessible in mainland China either.

“OKEx will continue to develop steadily in the international market, continuously improve its products and services, continue to maintain the policy of “exiting the Chinese mainland market,” and not set up offices and teams in mainland China.”

OKEx’s OKB token saw some fluctuation on the back of the news as it first went down to $15.14 from $16.44 only to spike to $16.89. As of writing, OKB is trading just under $16.

Another exchange Gate.io announced that it has blocked access to its website and removed its App from mainland China in response to local government regulatory policy requirements.

“In order to ensure the normal use and access of international users, Gate.io will normally provide legal and compliance services outside of mainland China,” said the exchange.

The same day, China’s largest social media platform WeChat blocked search results from the likes of “Binance” and “Huobi.”

After search engine Baidu and Twitter-like social media platform Weibo blocked searches for crypto exchanges in June, WeChat has also joined them by showing “no more results” to searches for them through existing articles to the exchanges are still accessible.

Amidst all this, China’s mining share after the ban has tanked, and the US has taken the lead.

According to Cambridge Alternative Finance Center data, China’s share of global hash rate has fallen from 44% in May to zero. Two years back, China was accounting for a whopping 75.5% of the share. At the time, the US’s share was a mere 4.1%, which has grown to 35.4%.

During this time, Kazakhstan's share increased significantly — 16.7% to achieve 18.1%; meanwhile, Russia’s share rose 5.3% to reach 11.2%. Canada also recorded significant growth going from 0.6% in June 2020 to 10.8% in July 2021.