This weekly roundup of news from Mainland Communist china, Taiwan and Hong Kong attempts to curate the industry'due south well-nigh important news, including influential projects, changes in the regulatory landscape and enterprise blockchain integrations.

China crackdown: Week 7

The summer of crackdowns continued this week, making it seven weeks since the initial annunciation on May 18 that virtual currencies were a risky investment and financial institutions should non provide services for them. The crackdown appears to exist having the desired event, every bit public involvement in the asset course is cooling. This is axiomatic by xc-day lows on WeChat searches for the word "Bitcoin" (BTC) over the past weekend, although this was a tendency mirrored on worldwide Google searches equally well.

The central banking company was the attacker this week, posting an announcement on its website on Tuesday that information technology and other relevant institutions are not allowed to directly or indirectly provide customers with virtual currency-related services. The declaration also mentioned that institutions can non provide services such as business concern venues, commercial displays, marketing campaigns and payment diversion for business activities related to virtual currencies. As usual, comments on Weibo were strongly in favor of the regulation, as People's republic of china's social media nevertheless has a song department of traditional investors.

Jack Ma's fund jumps in

On July 1, NFT gaming giant Animoca Brands announced it had received $50 1000000 in investment from Blue Puddle Capital, created past tech entrepreneur Jack Ma in 2015, which manages a portion of his $52.1 billion cyberspace worth. Blue Pool Capital too manages a portion of Joe Tsai's wealth, who is the electric current executive vice chairman of Alibaba. Animoca Brands develops and publishes NFT games such every bit REVV Motorsport and The Sandbox.

Miners in the money

The BTC mining hash charge per unit is still down effectually fifty% as Chinese miners sit on the sidelines or wait to relocate. This led to a difficult adjustment in the Bitcoin consensus algorithm, making blocks around 28% easier to mine. As a result, the remaining miners became an estimated 50% more than profitable, according to a Cointelegraph written report.

Many people, including Milky way Digital CEO Mike Novogratz, spoke out nigh the positive consequences of the electric current crackdown. Nick Spanos of Zap Finance stated that Bitcoin was an unstoppable machine due to the fact that "the earth'southward 2nd-biggest economy tin can't crush, devalue and dispense Bitcoin." This decision from Spanos ignores the fact that China derives very picayune social value from crushing or devaluing Bitcoin. The current policy is more interested in eliminating inefficient employ of free energy and risky speculative trading behavior.

Crossing the line

On Tuesday, the Beijing Municipal Civil Diplomacy Agency banned the China Blockchain Application Research Center. Specific reasons for the ban were non given, although the official response claimed that the research center was carrying out illegal social activities. Information technology'south likely that the center had been involved with cryptocurrencies, and considering the official nature of their name, was deemed to have acted illegally. It's very common for organizations to have official-sounding names in an attempt to improve their status inside the industry.

The China Blockchain Awarding Research Middle was founded in Beijing in November 2015 by the Museum of Internet Finance and some other institutions in the blockchain manufacture. It claimed to accept regional centers ready in Hangzhou, Shanghai, Silicon Valley and Dubai. In hindsight, their contribution to the industry appears to have been minimal, making this legal action more than ceremonious than annihilation.