19.jpg (Photo : img1.gtimg.com)
China's largest online marketplace, Taobao, revealed yesterday that it would no longer allow trading in the virtual currency bitcoin and other digital currencies on its sites.
Taobao said it is implementing the ban in response to an order from China's central bank requiring all, "third-party payment services to close Bitcoin, Litecoin and other digital currency trading channels."
The ban, which is set to go into effect on Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2014, also prohibits the sale of any hardware or software that can be used to mine bitcoins.
Last December, citing concerns for its ability to retain control of capital flows, the central bank forbid the nation's financial institutions from taking part in any transactions that made use of bitcoin and other digital currencies. Initially, the prohibition did not stop individuals from using digital currencies for their own purposes at their own risk. However, individual use of digital currencies was severely limited after BTC-China, China's oldest and one of the world's largest bitcoin exchanges, announced late last year that it would no longer allow deposits in Chinese yuan due to government regulations prohibiting third-party payment systems from using digital currencies.
Reports suggest that one of the reasons Taobao, which is owned by China's largest e-commerce vendor, the Alibaba Group, has decided to stop trading in bitcoin is because Alibaba is said to be contemplating a public listing later this year and doesn't want to run afoul of the authorities and market prior to the IPO.
