Alibaba’s Internet Shoping Site Bans Crypto Transactions In Policy Upgrade

The internet shopping site under the e-commerce giant Alibaba, called Taobao has updated its lists of services related to cryptocurrencies.

On Tuesday’s update, the site has now formally banned individual stores on its platform from providing services related to initial coin offerings (ICOs). Starting from 17 April, the new settlements also extend the platform’s existing self-regulatory scope from a previously ban on the sale of individual virtual currencies, including blockchain and crypto-pets.

Further, the existing restriction on selling cryptocurrency mining devices and offering mining tutorials remains unchanged.

The notable clampdown on ICOs by the People’s Bank of China, Taobao stated that stores that violate the new rules by continuing offering these services will be punished.

Notably, various services related to ICOs have remained active among individual stores on Taobao after the PBoC ban last year, some of which knowingly helped ICO projects draw up white papers with fake information.

At this moment, if you search the term “Whitepaper”, it could stiil lead to stores that offer white-paper copywriting services for blockchain and ICO fundraising activities. The term used by these stores has been slightly disguised and is rephrased as ICO.

Taobao’s new ruling also makes it the latest internet platform to withdraw from offering a stage to ICOs and blockchain related projects, following recent bans on cryptocurrency-related ads by social media giants such as Google, Facebook and Twitter.