China Censors Crypto Media and Restricts Domestic Mining

China continues its assault on crypto, as The Block reports that China is censoring crypto media. CoinMarketCap and CoinGecko have been blocked in China for months, and now Chinese crypto news outlets are being censored.

China has shut down, blocked, or removed the mobile apps and websites for most major crypto news outlets, including Chainnews, ODaily, and BlockBeats. Chainnews, a major Chinese crypto news service, announced it will be shutting down completely. Other outlets have moved to new websites and group chat apps.

The Chinese government has also taken further steps to restrict crypto mining. China had previously banned mining, leading to a massive decrease in mining within the country. Chinese Internet service providers (ISP) are now believed to be capable of blacklisting "domestic miner IPs that have communicated with mining pools' URLs." The ISPs can cut off the internet to miners’ IP addresses and blacklist mining pool URLs. This development is believed to be responsible for a rapid 10% decrease in hash rate for Bitcoin and Ethereum.

In addition to crypto, China is cracking down on foreign influences. Recently, the Chinese government has banned the Marvel movie Shang-Chi, blacklisted actress Zhao Wei by removing all her social media from the internet and all her shows from streaming services, and restricted fan accounts of K-pop bands on social media.