On Telegram they are popping up to discuss everything from how to transfer their digital tokens overseas to more effective ways to protect privacy and initial coin offerings.

The new rules on message groups have delivered a rare setback for WeChat, which permeates the daily life of 963 million users and underpins Shenzhen-based Tencent Holdings’s US$400 billion market valuation.

The crackdown has converged with a tightening on digital currencies as China declared ICOs illegal, dampened cryptocurrency trading and is said to be considering a ban on domestic bitcoin exchanges.

“It’s partially due to fears of bitcoin oversight, but I think it has more to do with the new rules on WeChat,” said Jake Smith, general manager at bitcoin.com, who manages a 500-person English language group on WeChat.

Smith, a US national, said he has been asked by another Chinese group owner whether he could replace the person as administrator, due to the belief that foreigners are exempt from the new regulations.

Tencent spokeswoman Jane Yip did not respond to Bloomberg’s request for comment.

The crackdown on bitcoin has seen BTCChina, Shanghai’s largest exchange, say it would halt trading by the end of September.

Some over-the-counter platforms, including those operated by Bitkan, suspended services this week.

Cryptocurrency groups on WeChat have been quick to disband and subsequently mushroomed overnight on Telegram.

While there are no figures on how many people have done so, at least 30 such groups have appeared, with some already attracting more than 1,000 users in a single room, mostly communicating in Chinese.

OKCoin, Huobi and BTCChina’s telegram groups are not officially run by the companies, according to the notices.

Chinese authorities said on September 7 that starting next month creators of online groups are responsible for the behaviour of members.

Already, 40 people from one WeChat group have been disciplined for spreading petition letters while a man who complained about police raids was arrested, according to reports in official Chinese media.

While Telegram is officially blocked in China, users can access the service through virtual private networks. As a foreign encrypted platform, it is somewhat beyond the grasp of the country’s authorities.

Telegram was founded by Pavel Duroz, a Russian entrepreneur known for his advocacy of internet freedom.

In June, he said the service would be registered with Russia’s state communications watchdog after it was threatened with a ban in the country.

WeChat, along with Tencent’s QQ service, have to adhere to Chinese government rules. That includes censoring sensitive topics, filtering images, deleting private and public accounts without user consent and storing information sent via its platforms for at least six months on its servers.

After the July death of Liu Xiaobo, memorial images of the long-imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize-winning writer were scrubbed from WeChat and Weibo.

“If you are a group chat leader you have two choices, either you are going to super actively monitor the group, because your livelihood is at stake, or you’re going to delete the group,” said Lokman Tsui, an assistant professor at the School of Journalism and Communication at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. “It’s a chilling effect.”

China is also cracking down on VPNs, which route traffic through servers outside the country, to stamp out access to foreign news sites and services. Apple is removing many VPNs from its Chinese app store to comply with local rules.