The People's Bank of China (PBOC) says it disrupted Solana's mid-October event in Shanghai because the promotional campaign behind it raised red flags for illegal virtual currency marketing, and the firms and individuals involved are now under investigation.

The account came from a PBOC official quoted by Financial News (Jinrong Shibao), a news outlet run by the central bank, in a report published on Friday. The official said Solana became a priority watch target for the regulator as it promoted its brand around the city and bought high-profile advertising through domestic partners.

Why regulators intervened

The regulator cited a dual rationale for the disruption. First, Solana's SOL token is a virtual currency. Second, the Solana network supports the issuance and trading of tokens such as Tether's USDT. Based on those interpretations, the official said, marketing Solana violates Chinese law and constitutes illegal financial activity.

The official also pointed to deficiencies in customer identification and anti-money-laundering controls across the crypto sector, along with the speculative trading risks the asset class invites. The PBOC did not act alone in halting the Shanghai event: local financial regulators, public security, and market supervision authorities joined the operation.

A different account from Solana

The report from the PBOC-linked outlet departs from the account Solana officials gave at the time of the cancellation. Shanghai was supposed to be the first stop of the four-city Accelerate China developer tour, with Hangzhou, Shenzhen, and Beijing planned as the remaining destinations.

As Cryptopolitan reported at the time, attendees received an email from the organizers on the morning of the event, October 16, informing them that the gathering would be postponed over “logistical considerations at the venue.” Solana Foundation President Lily Liu suggested turnout was the issue, writing on X, “Due to the publicity, event registrations quadrupled overnight, far exceeding the event cap.”

While Liu made no mention of the threat of enforcement in her post, attendees who were already at the Shangri-La hotel venue noticed a law enforcement presence on-site.

The central bank's report said Solana came onto the regulator's radar after an aggressive promotional campaign in which Solana branding appeared across the Shanghai skyline. The Solana Foundation had also touted its office in Pudong, located in the world's tallest commercially available office building, the Shanghai Tower.

This year's cancellation marked the second Solana event to be disrupted in mainland China. A late October 2025 Solana Accelerate event in Shenzhen was previously cut short by local police, with organizers citing overcrowding on that occasion as well.

The February rulebook behind the crackdown

China has treated crypto-related business as off-limits for years. The PBOC and four other departments issued a warning about the risks of Bitcoin as far back as 2013, and a 2021 notice spelled out that Bitcoin, Ether, and stablecoins such as Tether's hold no status as legal tender.

The current rulebook dates to February 2026, when the PBOC and seven other agencies issued a notice that restated the existing ban and added fresh restrictions, including a block on unauthorized yuan-pegged stablecoins, according to the official text published by the China Securities Regulatory Commission.

The directive also made Chinese firms and individuals liable for knowingly assisting offshore operators that provide crypto services inside the country, even when the project itself runs abroad.

The PBOC said it would continue targeting domestic crypto traders and the local affiliates of offshore crypto issuance and trading platforms, working in coordination with other agencies and local governments. Neither the central bank's account nor Solana's has outlined what comes next for the tour's remaining stops in Hangzhou, Shenzhen, and Beijing, or for the firms and individuals now under investigation.