Cybersecurity
China’s Top Search Engine Freezes Bitcoin Ads Without Warning
- China is the largest market for bitcoin trading and mining
- Country’s central bank is studying blockchain technology
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Baidu Inc. has quietly removed advertising for bitcoin and all other forms of virtual currency from its online service, two of China’s largest bitcoin exchanges say, signaling a growing wariness over the proliferation of online scammers.
The country’s most popular search engine froze cryptocurrency ads from Thursday, according to local exchanges OKCoin and Huobi. Huobi Chief Executive Officer Leon Li and OKCoin’s Jiang Anming, a member of its search engine marketing team, separately confirmed the ban to Bloomberg News. The company declined to comment.