Huobi and OKEx's tokens take biggest hit in China's latest crackdown

The prices of exchange tokens belonging to crypto exchanges Huobi and OKEx have tumbled following China's latest crackdown notice was released.

Within the hour after the People's Bank of China dropped the statement on its plan to further crack down on crypto trading, the prices of huobi token (HT) and OKEx's OKB token (OKB) both plunged by over 15%. They are currently the top two tokens with the biggest percentage drop over the past 24 hours as of press time, based on data from CoinGecko

China's tougher measures are now targeting all crypto-related services, meaning any business that let people exchange fiat currencies into crypto assets will be treated as illegal.

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Both Huobi and OKEx have strong roots in China and were founded in the country years ago. Although they have claimed to have moved out of China and suspended the Chinese yuan fiat on-ramp, they still have employees based in the country and cater to Chinese customers, allowing them to exchange Renminbi to crypto assets through over-the-counter (OTC) merchants on their platforms.

Binance, on the other hand, also offers Chinese yuan OTC services on its platform. The price of Binance's exchange token BNB, however, has taken less of a hit with an eight percent drop over the past hour.

The exchanges have not responded to The Block's request for comment on whether they have any reaction to China's renewed crackdown measures.

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About Author

Wolfie joined The Block’s news team in 2020 and switched to the research side in 2021 to focus on crypto mining analysis. Prior to The Block, he had been a journalist at CoinDesk for three years. Wolfie has a background in financial journalism.