Report: Solana Faces Probe Over Crypto Activities in China
China remains a hostile jurisdiction for crypto companies, and those that took risks to establish a foothold there are now facing scrutiny.
According to reports by SCMP, the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) is preparing to investigate Solana’s activities. The top-ten cryptocurrency project operates in mainland China, reinforcing the country’s hostile stance toward digital assets.
Financial News, a financial outlet linked to the PBOC, recently described Solana as a virtual currency issuance platform and said it provided issuance and trading services for major digital assets on its blockchain.
An unidentified PBOC official said these activities were prohibited on the mainland and classified as illegal under a notice issued in February.
“Overseas entities and individuals may not, in any form, illegally provide RWA-tokenization-related services to domestic entities,” the notice, issued by eight government agencies and the PBOC, stated.
The reports follow the Solana Foundation’s establishment of a commercial office in Shanghai, a move that stunned crypto participants and the broader digital assets ecosystem given China’s historic anti-crypto stance.
Industry figures, including Binance co-founder Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, praised the move at the time. “It’s amazing to see that Solana was able to advertise and even get an office in China,” he said, and many interpreted the events as a sign that China might be opening up to digital assets.
The office launch included a light show promoting the Solana brand in cryptocurrency colors on the curtain wall of the Citibank tower in Lujiazui.
Soon after, on October 16, the Solana Accelerate event was suspended. Lily Liu, president of the Solana Foundation, said the venue was overwhelmed by attendees and that the event’s capacity exceeded the number registered with local authorities. At the time, she said the event would be suspended to “better accommodate the breadth and scale of our community.”
The report says the suspension, with law enforcement present, involved direct PBOC intervention, and that an investigation into the entities and individuals involved was pending. Accelerate featured topics including artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, physical AI, emerging markets and local business development, while avoiding cryptocurrency trading and speculation.
The unnamed official stressed that the PBOC “will work with relevant departments and local governments, focusing on domestic virtual currency dealers and domestic related entities of overseas virtual currency issuance and trading platforms, to continue to crack down on domestic virtual currency-related business activities and maintain economic and financial order.”
Source: news.bitcoin.com. Adapted by NBTC.
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