The FUD over the China ICO ban seems to be over. After causing a global panic on Monday with the announcement of an ICO ban, a Chinese official has clarified the position saying that China will look to resume ICOs in the future after establishing licensing regulations. This was done via an interview on CCTV-13, a state run national television channel in China. When asked about whether the ban could stop innovation in the Blockchain Space, the official responded that this was not the intention of the ban and it was meant to protect investors. The explicitly said this was a “Stop” and not a “Forbidden” . The interview proceeded to mention Fintech and the benefits of it. One important take home is that talk about “regtech” – regulation technology, something that might be implemented in the future to allow ICOs that really need the money to be controlled and licensed.

Check a video recording of the CCTV-13 interview:

http://finance.chinanews.com/shipin/2017/09-06/news730639.shtml

Who was interviewed and it matters?

The interviewee, Hu Bing is from 中国社会科学院金融研究所 ( Institute of Finance and Banking, an academic research organization that’s only loosely affiliated with the State). This is important because he is not a major government official and the choice of the speaker is very strategic. Depending on how you interpret it, the speaker could represent the current line of thought for the government but also allow room to change their opinion if things go awry.

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