Tencent issued a statement: Three measures to rectify the chaos of ICO and virtual currency

In response to a series of recent chaos in the virtual currency and blockchain fields, Tencent today released rectification measures. The statement said that Tencent will restrict the collection function of the payment accounts of the problematic platforms, prohibit them from using WeChat Pay to collect virtual currency transactions; limit the collection amount of individual seller accounts, and restrict the collection of virtual currency related transactions; at the same time, it will also monitor daily transactions in real time.

The following is the original statement:

Today, the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission, the Central Cyberspace Affairs Office and other relevant regulatory authorities issued an announcement, pointing out that recently some lawless elements have been posing as "financial innovation" and "blockchain" to absorb funds by issuing so-called "virtual currency", "virtual assets" and "digital assets", infringing on the legitimate rights and interests of the public. Such activities are not truly based on blockchain technology, but are actually hyping the concept of blockchain to engage in illegal fundraising, pyramid schemes and fraud. Therefore, the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission, the Central Cyberspace Affairs Office and other relevant regulatory authorities warn the general public to look at blockchain rationally, not blindly believe in exaggerated promises, establish correct monetary concepts and investment concepts, and effectively improve risk awareness.

Since the People's Bank of China and seven other ministries and commissions issued the "Announcement on Preventing Risks of Token Issuance and Financing" in 2017, Tencent has remained highly vigilant against various ICO chaos, conscientiously studied and implemented relevant document regulations, and actively carried out special operations to strengthen information channel management.

In terms of payment channels, Tencent has also taken the following measures to address violations:

1. Restrict the payment function of the payment account of the problematic platform and prohibit it from using WeChat Pay to receive payment for virtual currency transactions;

2. Limit the amount of money that can be collected by individual seller accounts to only meet the needs of daily social business use, and limit the amount of money collected from virtual currency-related transactions. Currently, the cleanup of all virtual currency transactions using merchant accounts has been completed;

3. Carry out real-time monitoring of daily transactions, conduct risk severity assessments on hit transactions based on monitoring results, or take direct interception measures.

Identifying and combating illegal financial activities such as virtual currency transactions is a long-term task. In July this year, the People's Bank of China, based on the initial success of cleaning up and rectifying domestic virtual currency trading venues and initial coin offering (ICO) activities, took a series of targeted cleaning and banning measures in conjunction with relevant departments in response to new variants and new situations of related illegal financial activities, demonstrating its determination to resolutely combat the emergence of ICOs and various variants in the long term.

In January this year, the company issued a statement, "Tencent: Eliminate Illegal Financial Activities of "Virtual Currency", which clearly stated that we have always adhered to the principle of resolutely not providing related services for illegal financial activities such as "ICO token issuance and virtual currency transactions at home and abroad", including not providing related payment channels, advertising services, etc. At present, Tencent has established a targeted risk control model to identify personal virtual currency transfer transactions, and will take corresponding measures as soon as possible for violations discovered by the platform and reported by users.

Here, Tencent once again calls on the majority of users to recognize the risks of domestic and foreign ICOs and "virtual currency" trading platforms, firmly establish risk prevention awareness, actively cooperate with special rectification work, and jointly maintain financial order and social stability.

This article comes from Tencent Internet Finance.