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NFTs
TechTech Trends

Crypto sell-off draws avid online discussions in China despite ban on bitcoin, Luna trading

  • Luna, a cryptocurrency that saw its prices plunge over 80 per cent on Tuesday, was a top trending search term on Chinese social media platform Weibo
  • Despite Beijing’s ban on cryptocurrency trading, enthusiasts in the country are known to have found workarounds to skirt the restrictions

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An advertisement for Bitcoin cryptocurrency is displayed on a street in Hong Kong. A global cryptocurrency sell-off has drawn the interest of Chinese social media users despite a ban in crypto trading in the country. Photo: AP Photo
Xinmei Shen
A market rout that hammered the value of some of the world’s top cryptocurrencies and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) has piqued the curiosity of Chinese internet users, even though cryptocurrency trading is illegal in the country.

Luna, a cryptocurrency that saw its prices plunge over 80 per cent on Tuesday, was at one point the top trending search term on Chinese social media platform Weibo on Wednesday, after it showed up on the trending search rankings earlier.

Bitcoin, which was down to half of its value this week from its peak in November, was also one of the most searched terms on Weibo on Tuesday.

Strong interest in those topics suggests that a sizeable, albeit silent, community of cryptocurrency enthusiasts exists in China, despite Beijing’s forceful crackdown. China once accounted for the great majority of the world’s bitcoin trading and mining volume, before the government outlawed the activities to prevent potential capital flight.

The prices of a range of popular cryptocurrencies have slipped as investors sold off riskier asset classes that also included technology stocks, following moves by the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates to tame decades-high inflation.

Troubles surrounding TerraUSD, an algorithmic stablecoin designed to be pegged to the US dollar through its operation in conjunction with Luna, have also eroded investors’ confidence. It started trading well below US$1 this week, falling 83 per cent to below 50 US cents on Wednesday.

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