China's Central Bank Halts Solana Events, Opens Probe Weeks After Shanghai Office

The People's Bank of China has stopped Solana's planned offline events on the mainland and will investigate the entities and individuals tied to them, according to a Friday report from Financial News, a publication backed by the central bank. The probe targets both companies and people, though the report did not name any of them.

Roughly three weeks ago Solana kicked off a big marketing push in Shanghai, promoting the "grand opening" of a city office and a week-long Solana Accelerate China series across major mainland cities. The first event, set for Shanghai, was cancelled without warning. Solana Foundation president Lily Liu said on social media at the time that it had been "postponed," pointing to signups far exceeding the maximum capacity registered with local authorities. Financial News describes the halt differently.

An unnamed PBOC official told the paper that Solana is a "virtual currency issuance platform" for its SOL token, the seventh-largest cryptocurrency by market cap per CoinMarketCap. The official said Solana also provides technical services for issuing and trading major cryptocurrencies and stablecoins, USDT among them, and that the central bank considers those activities banned.

That lands under the banner of "illegal financial activities," language drawn from a February notice in which the PBOC and seven other regulators restated the need for strict crypto oversight. That notice also extended the crackdown to onshore tokenisation of real-world assets, meaning property, bonds and similar assets turned into digital tokens inside mainland China.

Liu Honglin, founder and director of Shanghai blockchain law firm Mankun Law Firm, wrote in a WeChat article Friday that parts of the industry had been "excited" by Solana's China activity, with many wondering whether domestic policy had shifted. He said the central bank's statement makes clear that overseas crypto firms will find it harder and harder to host mainland events, even ones focused purely on blockchain technology.

Solana did not immediately respond to a request for comment.