The Chinese authorities have explained their position regarding Initial Coin Offerings and the participation of Chinese residents in them.

ICO as a method of attracting funding will return to the Chinese market, after the national authorities develop an approach to the regulation and licensing of such projects. Such a statement was made by a Chinese official in an interview to national television CCTV-13.

According to him, the Chinese authorities are developing rules for obtaining a license, which will allow the projects to carry out ICOs on legal grounds. He also noted that the temporary ban on ICOs, which was announced in China at the beginning of the week, aims to protect the interests of investors.

He explained that it was a temporary measure, not a complete ban.

In the meantime, after China announced that ICOs are outside of the law, more than 40 different ICO-platforms were suspended in China. Some of them stopped registration of new projects, others limited operations related to ICOs. The cryptocurrency exchanges registered in China conducted a large-scale delisting the tokens issued during ICOs. The list of such exchanges includes Yunbi, Bter, Yuanbao, Jubi, btc9, etc. Yunbi delisted 13 tokens (QTUM, GXS, EOS, ANS, DGD, 1ST, GNT, REP, SNT, OMG, PAY, LUN and VEN).

The exchange platform Bitbays, whose operator is the British company Bitbays, even declared it would close operations in the Chinese market due to the recent statement of the Chinese authorities. On 5 September, the Chinese authorities issued a joint statement in which they announced ICOs as illegal financial activity and prohibited Chinese residents to take part in them. They also called on the projects to return the funds raised during the ICO to investors.