China's Central Bank Opens Solana Probe After Shanghai Event Shut Down

The People's Bank of China has opened an investigation into the companies and individuals behind Solana's activities in China. The central bank also confirmed on November 6 that authorities stopped Solana's Shanghai event before the doors even opened, saying that promoting SOL on its own breaks Beijing's crypto rules.

The details landed via Financial News, a newspaper the central bank runs, in what it described as an exclusive interview with an unnamed department head. According to that account, monitoring caught Solana using a domestic company to run high-profile ads for its brand and coin on the exterior wall of the Citigroup Tower in Lujiazui, Shanghai's main financial district. The PBOC says it worked with local financial regulators, police and market supervisors to shut down the event, called Solana Accelerate 2026.

The official leaned on a February 2026 notice from eight Chinese agencies, reported by Xinhua, which makes both the promotion and the activity illegal finance. That notice also bars overseas firms from offering crypto services to mainland users without approval. So far the PBOC has named no companies, no people and no penalties.

The Shanghai stop was set for October 16 at the Shangri-La Hotel. That morning, organizers emailed guests saying venue logistics had forced a postponement — the email never mentioned police. BeInCrypto reported that day that officers kept guests waiting outside for more than an hour.

Solana Foundation President Lily Liu offered a different version, saying registrations quadrupled overnight and blew past the attendance cap filed with local authorities, citing overcrowding risk and local requirements rather than any regulatory order. Binance founder Changpeng Zhao jumped in on X, asking whether organizers understood local policy — just days after praising Solana's new Shanghai office as something BNB Chain hadn't pulled off. It wasn't Solana's first run-in with Chinese police: in October 2025, officers questioned its Accelerate APAC event in Shenzhen and organizers cut a hackathon session.

Mainland China has banned crypto trading since 2021, so Chinese residents already couldn't legally buy SOL at home. The PBOC's next targets are domestic crypto traders and the mainland arms of overseas crypto platforms, leaving staff, contractors and partner firms of foreign networks most exposed. The tour had also listed stops in Hangzhou, Shenzhen and Beijing, and the central bank said events in Shanghai and other locations were halted. SOL traded at $90.05, down 7% over 24 hours, a slide the broader crypto market is also feeling. The case marks where Beijing draws its line: it's building a national blockchain network of its own while treating public tokens and their marketers as illegal finance.