China’s first Bitcoin exchange operator BTCChina has reportedly sold its stake in the Singapore-registered Bitcoin exchange ZG.com.
According to certain sources, BTCChina, the operator of China’s oldest Bitcoin (BTC) exchange, is no longer in the crypto business.
According to Chinese news source The 21st Century Business Herald, the corporation sold its stake in the Singapore-registered Bitcoin exchange ZG.com to an unidentified organization in Dubai.
ZG.com is a wholly autonomous crypto exchange business, according to the report, having registrations in the United States, Singapore, Estonia, Seychelles, and other nations.
In January 2019, BTCChina is said to have invested in ZG.com.
According to the South China Morning Post, BTCChina announced its exit from the Bitcoin business “in response to the Chinese government’s policies,” referring to the country’s massive crackdown on crypto mining and related operations.
BTCChina, which was founded in 2011 by Huang Xiaoyu and Yang Linke, was forced to halt trading cryptocurrencies in October 2017 due to the Chinese government’s ban.
The company then sold its exchange operations to a blockchain investment group based in Hong Kong. Except for customers having a Chinese IP address, the exchange continued to operate under the name BTCC.
Following the sale, BTCC’s operations sparked speculation that it was still associated with BTCChina and that Yang controlled the exchange, which the business has denied.
Last week, BTCC declared that it was unaffected by China’s crypto crackdown.
“BTCC is unaffected for the time being because BTCC does not provide cryptocurrency trading, but rather cryptocurrency derivatives,” the company explained.
ZG.com and BTCC did not immediately answer to calls for comment from Cointelegraph.
In recent months, the Chinese government has cracked down on cryptocurrency, shutting down significant crypto mining centres in provinces such as Sichuan, Yunnan, Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, and Qinghai.
Major Chinese banks, including the Agricultural Bank of China, have also acknowledged that Chinese officials are working to restrict any crypto-related transactions on Chinese bank accounts.
