WeChat, the Chinese social media and payments giant, has stated that users engaging in crypto trading on the platform will have their accounts deleted starting May 31st.
This statement comes within a revision of the WeChat’s payment policy. The policy revision reads: “merchants may not engage in illegal transactions such as virtual currency [trading or token issuing].”
Urgh, Wechat just updated its payment policy .. merchant can’t serve any token issuance/fund raising or crypto trading activities, otherwise account will be terminated
Given most OTC transactions are happening in wechat, this may impact local liquidity to quite some extent pic.twitter.com/TdNIO6cggS
— Dovey Wan ? ? (@DoveyWan) May 7, 2019
Binance CEO Chengpang Zhao alluded in a tweet to the possibility of this decision not being a personal choice of WeChat. Zhao suggests that the decision was likely the result of WeChat being under constant pressure from the historically anti-crypto Chinese government. On the brighter side of things, Zhao also alluded to the fact that this could leave a void for other Chinese companies to fill.
Honestly, it would be hard to beat WeChat pay if they are relatively open. (The UX is good). But more and more restrictions are forced upon them (probably not their own choice). Go #crypto!
— CZ Binance (@cz_binance) May 7, 2019
This development is certainly a loss in the short term for traders in China. According to Primitive Venture’s Dovey Wan, “…most OTC transactions are happening in WeChat, this may impact local liquidity to quite some extent.”
According to WeChat’s payment policy revision, all users must discontinue crypto trading by May 31st. If you are a user of the WeChat app, you should discontinue trading Crypto starting May 31st.
