Following in the footsteps of other crypto exchanges, Kucoin closes its doors to Chinese users

On Sunday, Kucoin became the latest exchange to ban Chinese cryptocurrency users from its platform. In a statement, the exchange said:

“For users in mainland China, KuCoin plans to complete an orderly liquidation before 24:00 (UTC+8) on December 31, 2021, while ensuring the safety of user assets.”

Since its inception, Kucoin, as well as many other exchanges operating in China, have had to make several changes to comply with Chinese law. In September 2017, after China banned the exchange of fiat currencies for cryptocurrencies, Kucoin cleared out mainland Chinese users and completed the clearing of all mainland Chinese users on October 3, 2017.

On September 24, 2021, after paying attention to the latest regulatory policies announced by the Chinese government, KuCoin conducted a technical self-examination to ensure that the company's business processes comply with regulatory requirements in mainland China.

The announcement reads, “In order to protect the rights and interests of users, we strongly recommend that relevant users transfer their assets to other platforms before 24:00 (UTC+8) on December 31, 2021.”

KuCoin says it has 8 million users who traded $1.7 billion worth of cryptocurrencies in the past 24 hours, according to CoinMarketCap.

Kucoin’s announcement comes on the heels of Huobi, which issued a statement in late September suspending account registrations for new users and will “deactivate existing accounts of users in mainland China by 23:00 [UTC+8] on December 31, 2021.”

As previously reported by Bitpush, Gate.io announced earlier this week that it would stop accepting new customers from mainland China.

Several top mining pools, including Ethereum mining pool SparkPool and China-based BeePool, closed down citing the new regulations. Alibaba also said it would stop selling crypto mining equipment.

Cryptocurrency exchange BitMart said it will purge user accounts registered in mainland China by November 30 to comply with Chinese regulations and “protect user assets.” After that date, it will stop providing all services to users in mainland China.

Trading information provider TradingView is inaccessible in China, and cryptocurrency-focused sites Coingecko and CoinMarketCap are also blocked, according to monitoring site GreatFire.org.

According to Flex Yang, CEO of Babel Finance, many crypto companies have moved out of China in the past few months. However, he said the impact of the latest policy will be "limited."