The China Internet Finance Association issued a major risk warning again after a three-year hiatus, marking the fourth such announcement in the past five years with a significant impact on the market.

On December 5, the China Internet Finance Association (CIFA) jointly issued a new risk warning with multiple government departments to curb illegal activities involving virtual currencies. This marks the first cryptocurrency-related risk alert since 2022—ending a three-year gap. Over the past five years, CIFA has released four high-profile announcements at key moments of market speculation. ### April 13, 2022 CIFA published the *Initiative to Prevent Financial Risks Associated with NFTs*, targeting the financialization and securitization of non-fungible tokens (NFTs). It explicitly banned using virtual currencies like Bitcoin as pricing or settlement tools for NFT issuance/transactions, and prohibited financing NFT trades. The document quickly cooled the domestic "digital collectible" market. Leading platforms (Tencent’s Fantech, Alibaba’s Whale Hunt) tightened gifting rules, while dozens of small/medium collectible platforms shut down due to liquidity crunches—bursting the domestic NFT speculation bubble. ### May 18, 2021 CIFA issued the *Notice on Preventing Risks of Virtual Currency Speculative Trading*, reiterating virtual currency transactions are not protected by Chinese law. It ordered financial institutions/payment providers to avoid virtual currency-related services (account opening, trading, clearing, etc.). The next day (May 19), market panic hit: Bitcoin plummeted over 30% in 24 hours (from >$43k to <$30k), setting a global record for total liquidations. ### April 2, 2020 CIFA released the *Risk Warning on Overseas Virtual Currency Exchange Speculation*, noting offshore platforms lack Chinese legal protection and often manipulate markets (fabricate trading data, intentional outages). This marked increased scrutiny of "offshore" exchanges. Subsequent crackdowns on virtual currency OTC (over-the-counter) fund channels in China intensified, leading to widespread "freeze card" incidents (users’ bank cards frozen over suspected virtual currency activity).