
Weibo purges cryptocurrency accounts amid bitcoin volatility as Beijing continues its crypto crackdown
- Microblogging platform Weibo banned at least a dozen popular cryptocurrency accounts on Saturday
- Beijing is ramping up a crackdown on cryptocurrencies amid concerns about financial risks and an effort to meet its green energy goals
At least a dozen popular Weibo users who post content about cryptocurrencies found themselves unable to use their accounts on Saturday night. Other users who attempted to access those pages were greeted with a message saying the accounts had violated Weibo guidelines and “relevant laws and regulations”.
“The account I’ve been using for years is suddenly gone,” one of the banned users posted to the platform under a new account called Professor Hash. “But I’m OK with it. The day was going to come sooner or later.”
Bitcoin miners look overseas amid crackdown in China
Binance, Huobi and OKEx, three major bitcoin exchanges, all had their accounts suspended in March.
The latest purge comes as Beijing pledges to crackdown even further on cryptocurrency mining activities. The government has repeatedly warned about cryptocurrency’s financial risks, which has gained fresh attention recently amid volatile bitcoin prices that have fallen from a peak of more than US$60,000 last month to around US$36,000 this past week.

Last month, Liu He, the top economic adviser to Chinese President Xi Jinping, said that the government will “crack down on bitcoin mining and trading behaviour, and resolutely prevent the transfer of individual risks to society”.
“It’s to protect investors from being misled,” said Benjamin Gu, a blockchain and cryptocurrency expert who founded Liyan Consulting.
“The total number of fans of these people is more than 5 million, and their influence on Chinese retail investors may not be less than [Tesla CEO Elon] Musk,” Colin Wu, a journalist who runs a cryptocurrency news site, posted to Twitter. “The accounts blocked by the Chinese government are mainly recommending investment and trading crypto to retail investors.”
Following Weibo’s ban, the price of bitcoin briefly dropped below US$36,000 on Saturday. But some also speculated that the slump was related to yet another tweet from Musk that seemed to suggest he was breaking up with bitcoin. Comments from the outspoken entrepreneur have previously triggered movements in the market.
