China's central bank halts Solana's Shanghai campaign and opens a probe

China’s central bank has stopped an advertising campaign that Solana ran in Shanghai through local companies, and it will investigate the entities and individuals involved. An official at the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) told the state-backed Financial News on Friday that Solana promoted its brand on the facade of Citigroup Tower in Lujiazui, the city’s financial district, Cointelegraph reported.

The PBOC case against Solana

The official said SOL counts as a virtual currency under Chinese rules and that Solana provides technical services for issuing and trading tokens such as USDT, which the official called “illegal financial activities.” On that basis, promoting the Solana brand breaks a notice that the PBOC and seven other agencies issued in February 2026. The official added that crypto cannot meet customer identification and anti-money laundering requirements and that trading it fuels speculation.

The February notice sets three main rules:

• bitcoin, ether, stablecoins and other virtual currencies do not have the legal status of China’s currency;
• crypto trading, token issuance and related financial services are banned in mainland China without permission;
• domestic companies and individuals may not help overseas crypto platforms that illegally serve mainland users.

The notice also banned unauthorized yuan stablecoins and tokenized assets, which widened China’s crypto ban.

An event stopped at the door

The PBOC, local financial regulators, police and market supervisors also halted the offline event Solana Accelerate China 2026, the official said. The Solana Foundation had planned it for Shanghai, Hangzhou, Shenzhen and Beijing from 16 to 22 October. On 16 October attendees in Shanghai could not get into the venue, and several law enforcement officers stood outside, crypto.news reported.

Solana Foundation president Lily Liu gave a different reason on X that day: registrations quadrupled overnight and exceeded the cap the organizers had registered with local authorities, so the foundation postponed the event to “comply with local requirements.” Binance co-founder Changpeng Zhao wrote: “Sad to see. Looks like they really didn’t know the local policies?” A Solana event in Shenzhen also ended early in October 2025, over venue capacity and public safety, according to Solana’s Chinese-speaking community.

Next targets

The regulators have not named the companies behind the campaign or announced penalties. Next, the PBOC plans to crack down on domestic crypto traders and on the Chinese affiliates of overseas platforms. Hong Kong runs a separate regime and licenses crypto firms under its own law.

SOL price

SOL traded at $90.11 on Friday, down 5.3% in 24 hours, by CoinGecko data. Bitcoin lost 4.9% over the same period, so the drop follows the wider market. SOL sits 69.3% below its January 2025 record of $293.31.

What it means for you

If you help promote Solana in China as an ad agency, a venue owner or a community organizer, you now face legal risk. If you live on the mainland, the February rules already bar you from trading SOL through services that operate there without permission, and the PBOC has shown it will enforce them against marketing as well. Outside China, SOL holders see no change: the network and the Solana ETFs keep working as before.

Based on reports by Cointelegraph and crypto.news of 6 November 2026, which cite a PBOC official quoted by Financial News. SOL price from CoinGecko on 6 November. This is not investment advice.