By Samuel Indyk
Investing.com – A number of major cryptocurrency exchanges were not showing up on searches on Chinese social media websites on Wednesday, in another sign that China is clamping down on digital assets.
According to CNBC’s Eunice Yoon, crypto exchanges Binance, Huobi Global, OKEx, and Bitfinex were blocked on both Weibo and Baidu (NASDAQ:BIDU) in Chinese and English language.
For Weibo, the searches read: “According to the related laws and regulations, the results of this search are not available”.
On Baidu, the searches returned: “Sorry, no relevant results found”.
China crackdown
The blocking of these websites appears to be the latest regulatory move by China whose efforts to crack down on cryptocurrencies have picked up pace in recent weeks.
Over the weekend, a number of crypto-related accounts were blocked or banned on Weibo (NASDAQ:WB), China’s Twitter-like platform, saying that the accounts had “violated laws and rules”.
And this all came just weeks after the country’s Financial Stability and Development Committee recently said they would be cracking down on Bitcoin mining and trading activities.
It is estimated that around 70% of cryptocurrency mining activity is conducted in China and the crackdown is having an impact on the price of some of the world’s most popular cryptocurrencies.
Since China stepped up its regulation efforts, and Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) stopped accepting Bitcoin as payment for vehicles, Bitcoin has struggled to gain any momentum to the upside and yesterday Bitcoin traded at its lowest level since 23rd May.
Although it has staged a rebound back towards $35,000 today, there are fears that a failed break above $40,000 could cause momentum to break down further.
In fact, the technical picture shows a death cross - where the 50DMA crosses below the 200DMA - is coming into view. Some analysts have predicted that if this were to occur, momentum could fade further and the world’s largest cryptocurrency could make a firm break below $30,000 and potentially lower.
Nevertheless, for now, Bitcoin remains in a range between $30,000 and $40,000, as it has been since 21st May bar two brief forays above $40,000.
At 13:00BST, Bitcoin is trading around $35,100, up 6% in the last 24 hours.