The world’s leading cryptocurrency gave up most of its earlier gains and was last up 0.5% at $31,300. It tumbled over 10% on Monday, its largest one-day drop in over a month. Bitcoin’s recent drop was sparked by the People’s Bank of China (PBOC), urging China’s largest banks and payment firms to crack down harder on cryptocurrency trading. Chinese authorities have also continued to crack down on crypto mining as miners continue to move out of China.

PBoC targets OTC trading platforms.

Crypto exchanges were effectively pushed out of China in 2017 through a rule change, but over-the-counter (OTC) platforms based overseas have sprung up to receive payment from people based in China and buying cryptocurrencies on their behalf. “It basically says now OTC transactions are not legitimate … we are not allowed by the banks to transfer money for cryptocurrency purchases and sales,” said Bobby Lee, chief of cryptocurrency wallet app Ballet and formerly CEO of BTC China, China’s first bitcoin exchange.

Crypto mining firm BTC.com moves its operations from China to Kazakhstan. 

BTC.com, one of the leading crypto mining firms, announced the successful relocation of its first batch of mining machines to Kazakhstan. BTC.com is a major crypto mining pool that is operated by BIT Mining and owned by the NYSE-listed Chinese lottery service provider 500.com. The mining pool is the world’s fifth-largest, validating 10.4% of blocks on the Bitcoin blockchain. The relocation comes after the state grid notified the company in western Sichuan province that the power supply serving one of its local data centers would be suspended imminently. Several other major crypto mining firms are also moving out of China amid the ongoing crackdown.