Alibaba – China’s BIGGEST e-commerce platform where you can purchase practically ANYTHING your heart desires. Wouldn’t it be great if such a platform incorporated crypto and Blockchain technology? It would do wonders for the crypto industry to be linked to such a site- and Alibaba really got our hopes up that this would be the case, only to dash them with great disappointment.
It was a few weeks ago that Alibaba made the exciting announcement that it would be developing a Blockchain-based system for Cryptocurrency e-commerce on its site, that currently handles close to a massive 15 million transactions daily. Just think of the magic that Blockchain could do for such a system!
But now it has been announced that Alibaba actually wants to ban all crypto-related activity from its site altogether. Alibaba has banned any stores on its site that sell products or services related to ICOs. Even services that are somewhat distant to an actual ICO such as writing business proposals, advice, marketing and tech development have all been banned if they in any way relate to ICOs and Cryptocurrencies in general.
These new regulations are in fact extensions of already-existing rules, that ban the sale of crypto coins, currencies and any product or service relating to Blockchain technology. The extension of these rules will come into full force when they are officially introduced on 17th April 2017.
There is already a regulation in place that bans the selling of crypto mining equipment of any sorts as well as tutorials on how to navigate the confusing world of crypto mining.
Taobao, an online shopping site that operates under Alibaba, has had to remove its recent additions of crypto-related products. But they don’t seem too remorseful about it. In fact, they even made an announcement that any vendors on their site attempting to sell crypto-related goods and services will be severely punished. But Taobao was not always against Cryptocurrency – in fact, at one stage it offered many products and services that even assisted in some popular cryptocurrency’s Whitepaper’s being written. But, some of these Whitepapers have proved to provide false information and even been involved with certain scams.
China was once a major hub for ICO and crypto-related sales and services, but recently it seems if they are tightening their standards and regulations- perhaps following the example of the strict yet successful neighbours-Japan.
Alibaba and Taobao have not officially concluded just why exactly they imposed these fierce restrictions so soon after they announced they would be implementing crypto and Blockchain on their site, but we can guess. Firstly, they may have been scared off by the very many ICO scams and general phishing scams that are popping up all over the show. Secondly, they could be wanting to follow suit of other major internet giants such as Facebook, Twitter, and even Google who recently made severe crypto bans. Whatever there reasoning, all we know is that crypto has been thrown in the dirt once again with this negative report and we hope some major retailers see its full potential.
