China banning financial institutions from dealing with crypto

It’s no surprise that a decentralized, and thus inherently independent currency irritates authoritarian institutions. So yesterday’s news about China banning financial institutions and payment companies from providing services related to crypto transactions was quite trivial.

China already banned ICOs and forced crypto exchanges to close in 2017, and the new ban only excludes financial institutions from being able to profit from the crypto market. At the individual level people are still able to hold cryptocurrencies and can use peer-to-peer exchanges or the DeFi to trade them. That’s the beauty of decentralization.