Crypto-Linked Stocks Plunge in Hong Kong, Bitcoin Steadies

Representations of cryptocurrencies Bitcoin and Ethereum are placed on PC motherboard in this illustration taken, on June 29, 2021. Dado Ruvic/Illustration/Reuters

HONG KONG/SINGAPORE—Cryptocurrency-linked stocks dropped in Hong Kong on Monday morning, after Chinese authorities intensified their crackdown on the industry, while major cryptocurrencies steadied.

Shares of crypto asset manager and trading firm Huobi Tech, an affiliate of Huobi Global, one of the world’s largest exchanges, fell more than 30 percent after the opening bell.

Huobi Global said on Sunday it had stopped taking new mainland customers from Friday and would close accounts belonging to mainland-China based clients by the end of the year to comply with local regulations.

China’s regulators intensified a crackdown on Friday, banning cryptocurrency transactions and mining, and saying that overseas exchanges are barred from providing services to mainland investors via the internet and that mainland-China based employees of overseas crypto exchanges would be investigated.

OKG Technology Holdings Ltd, a fintech and construction company majority owned by Xu Mingxing the founder of cryptoexchange OK Coin, fell more than 20 percent.

However, cryptocurrencies traded firmly on Monday, having rebounded from selling driven by the Chinese crackdown as buy-the-dip speculators swooped in.

Bitcoin was up about 2.4 percent in Asia trade at $44,250, having fallen to just below $41,000 in the wake of Friday’s announcement of a blanket ban on crypto mining and transactions in China—the most wide-ranging clampdown yet.

Rival token ether rose 3 percent to $3,163 and has recouped its Friday losses.