A review of China\'s virtual currency regulatory policies over the years

On November 28, 2025, the People\'s Bank of China held a meeting on the coordination mechanism for cracking down on virtual currency trading hype. The Ministry of Public Security, the Central Cyberspace Administration, the Central Financial Office, the Supreme People\'s Court, the Supreme People\'s Procuratorate, the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Justice, the People\'s Bank of China, the State Administration for Market Regulation, the State Administration for Financial Regulation, and the China Securities Regulatory Commission Relevant responsible comrades of the State Administration and the State Administration of Foreign Exchange attended the meeting.

The meeting pointed out that in recent years, all units have conscientiously implemented the decisions and arrangements of the Party Central Committee and the State Council, and in accordance with the requirements of the \"Notice on Further Preventing and Handling the Risks of Virtual Currency Trading Speculation\" jointly issued by the People\'s Bank of China and other ten departments in 2021, we must resolutely crack down on virtual currency trading hype, rectify virtual currency chaos, and achieve remarkable results.

In order to fully understand this regulatory signal, let\'s first review the regulatory nodes that have really changed the direction of the industry in China over the past ten years.

01 Key policies of central banks and regulatory authorities to crack down on virtual currencies over the years

02 The core points of the meeting on November 28, 2025

This meeting is not to \"change the rules\", but to \"strengthen enforcement.\" The key points can be summarized into four points:

1. The nature of supervision remains unchanged: the line of comprehensive prohibition continues

reiterates:

● Virtual currency is not currency and has no legal compensation;

● All virtual currency-related businesses are illegal financial activities;

● Financial institutions and payment institutions are not allowed to provide any convenience.

● There is no sign of loosening the regulatory direction.

2. The risk of stablecoins has been raised to the level of formal meetings for the first time.

● Stabillecoins (USDT/USDC) have been named:

● It is difficult to meet KYC/AML requirements;

● It is easy to be used as a tool for cross-border fund transfer, money laundering, and fraud;

● It will become a key investigation target in the future.

This is the most important \"new signal\" of this meeting.

3. Comprehensive upgrade of collaborative supervision of \"information flow + capital flow\"

Meeting requirements:

● Cyberspace Administration monitors information flow (Social media, publicity, drainage pages);

● Central bank/bank supervision of capital flow (recharge, withdrawal, collection links);

● Public security departments establish a rapid disposal mechanism for money laundering and fund-raising fraud;

● Strengthen cross-department data sharing, risk monitoring and law enforcement collaboration.

This means that the coverage of supervision will be more \"full-chain\" and \"intelligent\".

4. This is an action deployment meeting, not a new legal document.

There are no new qualifications and no new rules have been introduced; the main purpose is to allow various departments to continue to tighten and implement them in accordance with the 2021 Framework; special emphasis is placed on combating speculation, cross-border channels, and stablecin links.

The actual impact of 03 on the encryption industry

Although it is not a new round of \"large-scale liquidation\", it still has a significant impact on the domestic environment.

1. The difficulty of OTC trading in stablecoins has further increased

Because it was named,

● The probability that the collection codes and bank accounts of OTC merchants will be subject to risk control increases;

● Individuals purchasing stablecoins may more easily trigger risk control;

● Large-value transactions and special time periods will be focused on.

This will strengthen the trend of \"gray channel\" → \"grayer\".

2. On-chain crimes, running points, and money laundering will be accurately cracked down.

The combination of \"information flow + capital flow\" will make: money laundering, running points, black and gray industry chains, fake NFT, GameFi fund-raising, pyramid schemes chain games, these have become easier to identify by algorithms.

3. Limited impact on the global crypto market

The reasons are very realistic: China is no longer in a dominant position in crypto trading and mining; China\'s global BTC pricing power depends on U.S. ETFs, international capital flows, and macro factors; China\'s regulation has a great impact on \"domestic participants\" but has a weak impact on \"global prices.\" This is completely different from 2017 and 2021.

Bitcoin remained sideways at around US$90,000 before and after the meeting, and there was no obvious decline triggered by policy news.

(Recent fluctuations in BTC mainly come from global macro and ETF capital flows, rather than China regulation.)

04 Summary: The main line of supervision remains unchanged, but the executive level is \"strengthened\"

One sentence frames the changes in China\'s regulatory logic: 2013 Qualitative virtual commodities → 2017 Clearing exchanges/ICO → 2021 Comprehensive characterization of illegal financial activities → 2025 Increased enforcement + key rectification of stable currencies .

What can be expected in the future is:

● Stability coin regulation will continue to be tightened;

● Cross-border links will be monitored;

● Grey chain will continue to be cleaned up;

● The overall attitude towards public chain tokens remains \"prohibited, not recognized, not involved, not supported\".