WeChat has updated its policies to ban accounts that provide access to crypto or NFT related services.
Under the new guidelines accounts involved with the issuance, trading, and financing of crypto and NFTs will be either restricted or banned and will fall under the “illegal business” category.
The policy also covers secondary NFT trading, with the firm noting that “accounts that provide services or content related to the secondary transaction of digital collections shall also be dealt with in accordance with this article.
In terms of punishments, the new policy states that “once such violations are discovered, the WeChat public platform will, according to the severity of the violations, order the violating official accounts to rectify within a time limit and restrict some functions of the account until the permanent account is banned.
The Chinese government rolled out a phased ban on the local crypto sector between May and September last year. However, given the timing of the latest policy update on WeChat, it could suggest the platform has been letting some crypto activity go unnoticed since then.
Furthermore, there is still a regulatory gray area in the country concerning NFTs as the assets can be purchased in fiat. Still, companies and platforms generally bar secondary trading to avoid potential compliance issues over the financialization of the tech.
