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Chinese police reportedly detained a prominent crypto OTC trader.

The People's Bank of China plans to use the national digital currency dubbed DCEP at the 2022 Winter Olympics scheduled to ta
The People’s Bank of China plans to use the national digital currency dubbed DCEP at the 2022 Winter Olympics scheduled to take place in Beijing.

Chinese law enforcement agencies are targeting crypto trading. Reportedly, Zhao Dong – a prominent Chinese crypto OTC trader and the co-founder of the crypto lending platform RenrenBit – has been held up by police in the city of Hangzhou. A rumor that Zhao had been taken away first started on WeChat on Thursday, after a screen capture describing his detention began circulating within the local community and was later reported by local news outlets.

China cracks down on OTC traders.

As the news reports drew wider attention given Zhao Dong’s prominent status, a representative of RenrenBit said in a statement on the social media platform Weibo that one unnamed OTC trading desk in Beijing had its whole team taken away by police late last month. It does not appear that any of the OTC traders were arrested straight away. RenrenBit’s representative informed that Zhao, who has invested in the OTC team but was not involved in day-to-day trades, returned to China from Japan in early June and is now “actively” assisting local police in anti-fraud and anti-money laundering investigations.

The Chinese government in 2017 had prohibited local crypto exchanges from allowing trades between cryptocurrency and Chinese yuan. Many traders turned to OTC platforms as a result, which essentially enables peer-to-peer trading by connecting buyers and sellers in real-time.

China is all set to launch its CBDC.

The People’s Bank of China has now been working on its national digital currency for the last five to six years. The centralized digital currency is currently being tested in four cities. The launch of the digital currency is expected to happen sometime this year or in early 2021. The centralized digital currency dubbed as DCEP (Digital Currency Electronic Payment) is claimed to threaten the global dominance of the US dollar.

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