STOs Count As “Illegal”: Deputy Governor of Chinese Central Bank

By Prashant Jha

As per reports from a local news outlet in China, an official of the People’s Bank of China or PBoC in short, has recently spoken on how STOs are considered to be illegal financial offerings in the country. Pan Gongsheng, who elaborated on the Chinese Central Bank’s hard-line stance towards STOs or Security Token Offerings, is a deputy governor of the organization. The details of his statement have been originally published by several Chinese papers including the English language newspaper South China Morning Post today, December 9th, 2018.

He said that although the country has long banned ICOs or Initial Coin Offerings alongside STOs, under the table dealings ensure that these are still rampantly conducted in mainland China. The Government had taken stern action to clear out the crypto landscape of the country last year itself but it seems as though illegal elements are once again rearing their heads and even getting away with it.

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Pan Gongsheng was at a summit in the country’s capital Beijing when he made these remarks. An excerpt reads as follows:

‘Illegal’ financing activities through STOs and ICOs [Initial Coin Offerings]  were still rampant in the mainland despite a nationwide clean-up of the cryptocurrency market last year.

Gongsheng went on to say that the flouting of the ban had reached such a dire situation that the chaos inherent in the underground crypto market of China had posed serious risk to the country’s general financial stability. However, owing to the Government intervening right in time, a crisis had been averted. He emphasized on the official view that cryptocurrencies are tools of terrorists and other antisocial, criminal elements.

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He also mentioned how illegal ICOs allegedly conducted in China over the past few months have mainly been associated with unscrupulous activities like pyramid schemes. Clearly, the Chinese authorities are far from softening their approach to the world of crypto.