The latest round of crypto ban in China has taken its most recent toll as the second largest Ethereum mining pool in the world, SparkPool has decided to shut up shop.
Etherminer is the largest Ethereum mining pool in the world with SparkPool following close behind but it looks as though that most of the transactions and mining for this pool was coming from China as a result of which, it has been seriously affected due to the crypto crackdown in China. It has already announced that it would not be taking in any new users from mainland China and even the existing users in China are expected to lose access in a day or two. It has initiated this action in conformance with the ban on all crypto transactions that were announced by the PBOC last week.
Any kind of crypto transactions are banned in China and this includes even foreign companies that are doing crypto business within China, whether it is an exchange or OTC or mining. Though China has made such announcements earlier as well, without much effect, this time the government seems to be serious as it accompanies other major social and economic changes that have been initiated in China over the last few months. This has led to the closure of exchanges operating in China and miners have also shut up shop over the last few months.
Huobi and Binance had also announced yesterday that they were stopping taking on new users from mainland China though they continue to take in users from Hong Kong. It is expected that more crypto exchanges would also stop taking in users from China in the future as they begin to realize that the crypto ban in China is here to stay, unlike the previous times. It remains to be seen whether such action is being taken by the government in preparation for the introduction of its version of a digital currency, which is what is widely reported to be the case.
Even if that is the case, it is unlikely to help the crypto ecosystem in the long run as the other cryptos would be unable to enter into the Chinese financial ecosystem in any case, something which is necessary for any industry to grow due to the sheer size of the Chinese population.
