© AFPWorkers sorting out packages at an Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba in Beijing.
Bitcoin faces a fresh obstacle in China as Alibaba,the country's largest e-commerce group, will ban bitcoin transactions starting January 14.
Alibaba Group Holding Ltd's Taobao, China's largest online marketplace, will not allow any transactions of virtual currencies or related products, the
Financial Times reports.
Alibaba Group, an internet group of e-commerce businesses that handled over $170 billion in sales in 2012, expects to hold an initial public offering later this year, and banning bitcoin and steering clear of the sale of counterfeit goods is seen as an extra precaution.
Banning the anonymous virtual currency will
"promote the healthy development of the Taobao Marketplace and to more effectively protect the interests of Taobao members," Alibaba said in a statement posted on its website on Tuesday.
Users will not only be barred from buying and selling bitcoins, but all related activities, including "mining" the currency, which is the creation of new bitcoins through solving complex logarithmic equations.
The move is part of a larger government crackdown on the cryptocurrency, which has fast gained traction in China, the world's second-largest economy and home to the largest bitcoin trading platforms.
Comment: This 'poor people's protest movement' has its own TV channel and is led by this man:
Does he look like a 'working man of the people' to you?! Thaugsuban has a long history of corrupt and unethical behaviour.
He doesn't want to reform the government in the people's favor: he wants to 'reform' it back to the way things were before his kind lost out in the revolution.
This is not a 'people's revolution': it's a mob backed (and armed) by the military regime and the country's billionaires who detest Thaksin because he actually used his power and wealth to help ordinary Thais.
See also:
Strategy of Tension: Five injured by organized mob armed with guns and bombs trying to prevent election taking place in Thailand
A little history regarding Thailand: who is Abhisit Vejjajiva, the man behind the color revolution?