China has been cracking down on bitcoin since 2013, banning financial institutions from processing bitcoin transactions, and over the years it has never stopped cracking down on the cryptocurrency market.

Just earlier this year, China announced additional measures to shut down processing miners and reiterated its ban on Chinese financial institutions from providing cryptocurrency-related services. The People's Bank of China said it plans to increase monitoring of cryptocurrency-related transactions.

Recently, the PBOC said that all cryptocurrency-related activities are illegal in China, including the provision of services such as digital asset trading, order matching, token issuance and derivatives. In addition, the PBOC also said that overseas cryptocurrency exchanges that offer services in mainland China are also illegal.

According to CoinMarketCap, Bitcoin fell 4% in 24 hours following news of this policy and is currently trading at around $43,020. Ether is down 6% and is currently trading at around $2,973.

Meltem Demirors, chief strategy officer at CoinShares, said: Similar policies have come up many times before, and are really much the same in nature. This is not the first time, nor will it be the last time, that a ban on cryptocurrencies will occur.

James Ledbetter, editor of fintech newsletter and a contributor to CNBC, said: It's technically impossible for any regulation to effectively ban Bitcoin because of its design. Even a concerted effort between different countries and different central banks can't do that. Although the emergence of any of these policies would cause market volatility.

This time the policy is probably aimed at developing a digital yuan and a digital currency for central banks, said Chris Bendiksen, head of research at CoinShares. At the same time China is trying to meet its environmental goals, aiming to be carbon neutral by 2060, and mining cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin is very energy intensive and requires the use of a lot of computer power.

Meanwhile, recently, U.S. regulators have stepped up their focus on the cryptocurrency industry.

Gary Gensler, chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, has been emphasizing regulation of the cryptocurrency market, and the SEC has been working overtime to develop a set of rules to regulate it. Others, including Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell and U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, have also expressed concern about this area.

For his part, Anjali Jariwala, a certified financial planner, certified public accountant and founder of Fit Advisors, said that well-thought-out regulation would benefit the cryptocurrency industry. An industry as large as cryptocurrency is unlikely to move for long without any regulation or oversight.

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