China’s securities regulator, the China Securities Regulatory Commission, announced on May 25 that it would punish three major foreign brokerages for their ties to cryptocurrencies – Tiger Brokers, Futu Securities and Longbridge Securities – for illegal cross-border financial operations targeting mainland investors, as part of a sweeping nine-agency implementation plan that sets a two-year deadline to eliminate all unauthorized cross-border securities, futures and fund management activities from China’s financial landscape.
An announcement made public through the Information Office of the State Council and falling within the scope of Art China’s official Xinhua news agencyrepresents the most coordinated enforcement action Beijing has taken against foreign financial platforms since the cryptocurrency mining ban was introduced in 2021. According to an official Xinhua report, the CSRC said it would confiscate all illicit profits from domestic and foreign entities affiliated with Tiger, Futu and Longbridge and impose severe penalties under Chinese law.
Under the implementation plan, the three brokerage houses have been granted a two-year phase-out period during which they are strictly prohibited from facilitating the creation of modern buy orders or accepting capital inflows from mainland investors. Only sell orders and capital withdrawals will be allowed. Upon expiration, affected institutions must completely shut down their mainland-facing websites, trading applications and secondary servers, according to the SCIO announcement.
BTC's price trends to the upside since March 2026 as seen on the daily chart. Source: BTCUSD on Tradingview
Why this matters for cryptocurrencies
The enforcement actions are not nominally aimed at cryptocurrencies – they are aimed at foreign securities and futures brokers. However, the cryptographic implications are structural and direct. According to a BeInCrypto analysis published on May 22, the main channels through which Chinese traders access cryptocurrency markets – OTC outlets, peer-to-peer exchanges and USDT ramps – operate in the same regulatory gray zone that Beijing has now formally pledged to eliminate in all cross-border financial activity.
The February 2026 attack, in which the People’s Bank of China and seven other agencies jointly expanded China’s existing cryptocurrency ban to explicitly include stablecoins, RWA tokenization, and the issuance of yuan-pegged stablecoins, established the policy framework.
The May 25 action is its enforcement element – a signal that the two-year recovery schedule broadly applies to all unauthorized cross-border financial channels, not just licensed brokerages, according to the language of the CSRC implementation plan, according to Xinhua.
The market reaction was quick. The US-listed shares of the parent company Tiger Brokers fell by over 10% in quotations before the opening of the session. According to a report by Wu Blockchain on May 22, Futu Holdings fell by more than 5%, with some session reports showing declines of up to 35%.
Wider pattern
Beijing’s enforcement posture in 2026 reflects a deliberate sequence: the February policy announcement established an expanded legal scope covering stablecoins and tokenization; the May brokerage action shows the state’s readiness to impose significant financial penalties on immense listed companies operating in violation of these limits.
For participants in the nascent sector who continued to access cryptocurrencies through informal Chinese channels, the enforcement trajectory points in one direction – and the two-year correction deadline gives Beijing a concrete timeline against which to measure compliance.
This development marks a critical moment for the relationship between cryptocurrencies and Chinese capital. Whether the crackdown accelerates demand for OTC cryptocurrencies as mainland investors seek alternative ways to store value – as has happened in the past during previous Chinese enforcement waves – or succeeds in significantly limiting cross-border flows of digital assets will determine whether Beijing’s tightening ultimately strengthens or simply redirects China’s participation in crypto.
Cover photo of Grok, BTCUSD on Tradingview
