People In China No Longer Able To Access Popular Data Aggregators Of Cryptocurrencies Like Bitcoin, Ethereum

China has blocked two of the most popular cryptocurrency data websites — CoinMarketCap and CoinGecko.

What Happened: Benzinga confirmed that in the early hours of Tuesday CoinMarketCap.com and CoinGecko.com were inaccessible in China.

The websites provide price information and market capitalization data on cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin BTC/USD, Ethereum ETH/USD, and Dogecoin DOGE/USD.

See Also: How To Buy Ethereum (ETH)

Tests were carried out using tools provided by comparitech.com and greatfire.org, which confirmed that both the websites are now behind China’s so-called Great Firewall. The news was earlier reported by The Block.

Investor and China watcher CN Wire said on Twitter that Chinese IP addresses are also unable to access TradingView.

#BREAKING
Users with Chinese IP addresses are now unable to access CoinGecko, CoinMarketCap, and TradingView.

*#CoinGecko, #CoinMarketCap, and #TradingView may have blocked Chinese IPs due to the authority's #crypto crack down orders.#China #cryptocurrency

— CN Wire (@Sino_Market) September 28, 2021

Benzinga confirmed using the greatfire.org tool that the website is under censorship in China but comparitech.com labeled the website as being blocked.

Why It Matters: CoinGecko founder TM Lee said that data sites did not actively cut off Chinese IP access but rather it was a move by China’s internet censorship agency, reported The Block.

“As far as we know, we didn't block proactively,” said Lee.

China’s central bank the People’s Bank of China repeated a warning on virtual assets like cryptocurrencies on Friday. 

The cryptocurrency market largely shrugged off the latest salvo by the central bank on Monday. 

Decentralized Finance powered exchanges are currently in the spotlight and have seen a surge in usage after China cracked down on cryptocurrencies.
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