‘ICO ban to stop illegal fundraising’

China’s ban on initial coin offerings (ICO) is a necessary move to stop illegal fundraising and pyramid schemes, but should not stop firms from studying blockchain technology, a senior central bank official told the Financial News newspaper yesterday. Sun Guofeng, director general of the People’s Bank of China’s research institute, said the central bank’s move to ban the practice of creating and selling digital currencies or tokens to finance start-up projects on September 4 was “necessary and timely”.