Chinese payments platform Alipay will ban all transactions related to Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.
The news was confirmed on Alipay’s official Twitter page on Thursday, with a statement reading: “If any transactions are identified as being related to bitcoin or other virtual currencies, Alipay immediately stops the relevant payment services.”
The update came just hours after Binance CEO Chanpeng ‘CZ’ Zhao announced that its P2P platform will support WeChat and Alipay as fiat-on-ramps for Chinese customers.
In direct response to CZ, Alipay wrote “NO, you cannot” in reference to its suggested use as a potential fiat gateway.
If any transactions are identified as being related to bitcoin or other virtual currencies, @Alipay immediately stops the relevant payment services.
— Alipay (@Alipay) October 10, 2019
The company added: “There’re several reports about Alipay being used for bitcoin transactions. To reiterate, Alipay closely monitors over-the-counter transactions to identify irregular behaviour and ensure compliance with relevant regulations.”
Despite cryptocurrency exchanges being banned in China since 2017, speculators still manage to purchase digital assets in over-the-counter deals, which remain legal due to the peer-to-peer nature.
This is the loophole Binance hoped to capitalise on with the launch of a native P2P platform specifically for Chinese customers.
Before Alipay’s scathing response, CZ stated on social media that “1.4 billion people” could start trading peer-to-peer on Binance’s P2p platform.
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