In a recent move to crackdown on the rising interest in cryptocurrency in China, Tencent Holdings Ltd TCEHY-owned social media platform WeChat has announced policies to ban accounts related to crypto or non-fungible tokens (NFT).
What Happened: According to recently updated policies of WeChat, the platform will either restrict or ban social accounts involved with the issuance, trading, and financing of cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin BTC/USD, Ethereum ETH/USD, or Dogecoin DOGE/USD, and NFTs.
The policy further added that such accounts would fall under the "illegal business" category since the country has imposed a blanket ban on digital currencies.
The new guidelines also cover secondary NFT trading, with the policies noting that "accounts that provide services or content related to the secondary transaction of digital collections shall also be dealt with in accordance with this article."
"Once such violations are discovered, the WeChat public platform will, according to the severity of the violations, order the violating official accounts to rectify within a time limit and restrict some functions of the account until the permanent account is banned," the guidelines added.
The developments were highlighted by Hong Kong-based crypto analyst Wu Blockchain (Colin Wu), who pointed out the significance of the recent action given that the Chinese social media has more than 1.1 billion daily users.
The move came a month after China showed an explicit interest in the ups and downs of the crypto market on Weibo during the Terra LUNA/USD crash. As the crypto market slumped, the hashtag "#luna" shot up to the list of top ten keywords on Weibo — which is used by 570 million people monthly.
Price Action: According to data from Benzinga Pro, Tencent OTC shares closed 1.17% higher on Friday.
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