China bans crypto trading, mining

China's most powerful regulators on Friday intensified the country's crackdown on cryptocurrency with a blanket ban on all crypto transactions and mining, hitting Bitcoin and other major coins and pressuring crypto and blockchain-related stocks.

Ten agencies, including the central bank as well as banking, securities and foreign exchange regulators, vowed to work together to root out "illegal" cryptocurrency activity, the first time the Beijing-based agencies have joined forces to explicitly ban all cryptocurrency-related activity.

China in May banned financial institutions and payment companies from providing services related to cryptocurrency transactions, and issued similar bans in 2013 and 2017. The repeated prohibitions highlight the challenge of closing loopholes and identifying Bitcoin-related transactions.

Friday’s move comes amid a global cryptocurrency crackdown as governments from Asia to the US fret that privately operated highly volatile digital currencies could undermine their control of the financial and monetary systems, increase systemic risk, promote financial crime and hurt investors.

They also worry "mining," the energy-intensive process via which Bitcoin and other tokens are created by high performing computers, is undermining global green goals.

Bitcoin, the world's largest cryptocurrency, dropped more than 9 per cent to $40,693 on the news.

Smaller coins, which typically rise and fall in tandem with Bitcoin, also tumbled. Ether fell 10 per cent while XRP dropped a similar amount.