As if any more proof was needed regarding China’s aggressive stance towards cryptocurrencies and its recent crackdown on the new industry, the country has now banned the extremely popular crypto exchange known as Binance, and the company’s website has now been blocked via the nation’s ‘great firewall’.

As of yesterday, an abundance of users was unable to log into the crypto exchange’s website, and this had caused widespread panic as to whether a block on the site had been administered, which turned out to be exactly the case. Furthermore, the crypto exchange’s mobile application has also been made inaccessible through backend API calls also being blocked. This information had been provided thanks to prominent crypto blogger Colin Wu.

In related news, China had also recently banned various social media applications as well as ‘western’ media products such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Tumblr, Reddit, Pinterest, Quora, Dropbox, Gmail, OneDrive, Google Play, and more. Many individuals both in and outside of the crypto sphere have since stated that China’s method of being ‘self-dependant is a direct challenge to the dominant capitalist ways of the likes of the United States, and its recent actions pertaining to the crypto industry are really just another step towards achieving this autonomy.

‘Great firewall’

A play on the Great Wall of China, the nation’s ‘great firewall’ is essentially the amalgamation of legislative technologies and actions which are enforced by China in a continued attempt to increase regulations throughout the country, particularly involving all activities related to the Internet.

As such, this digital construct now firmly prevents everyone in China from being able to access Binance. If the locals still desire to access the exchange, then the usage of a VPN (virtual private network) service will be required. However, the government will be monitoring these actions closely, so extra caution would need to be exercised.

Other exchanges still available

The likes of OKEx and Huobi, both of which serve as the main rivals to Binance, are still currently accessible in China. Moreover, it is becoming increasingly difficult for Chinese crypto investors to do anything now as even the keyword searches for popular crypto exchanges (including Binance) had all been blacklisted via the country’s Internet services back in June.

In related news, Binance has been experiencing regulatory problems all over the world, with several banks in the U.K blocking any payments being made to the exchange recently.