The short version
- Solana China marketing is under investigation: the PBOC will look into the companies and people behind Solana’s ads on a Lujiazui tower and has stopped its Accelerate China events.
- The official called SOL a virtual currency and said promoting Solana breaks the rules eight agencies issued on February 6.
- SOL barely moved on the report and sits near $90, right on its 200-day average, ahead of Sunday’s weekly close.
China’s central bank said on Friday it will investigate the companies and people behind the Solana China ad campaign, after Solana’s logo lit up a tower in Shanghai’s Lujiazui financial district.
A People’s Bank of China official told Financial News, the central bank’s own newspaper, that Solana had placed the ads through a local company. The PBOC has already stopped the Solana Accelerate China 2026 meetups in Shanghai and other cities, working with local financial regulators, the police and market regulators.
Three weeks ago, the same ads were being shown off as a breakthrough.
Wu Blockchain shared the statement along with a photo of the ad, a Solana light show on the Citigroup Tower:
China's Central Bank to Investigate Solana's Advertising Campaign in Shanghai's Lujiazui District
An official from the People's Bank of China (PBOC) said authorities recently discovered that Solana had placed advertisements in Shanghai's Lujiazui financial district through
What Did the PBOC Say About Solana?
It said promoting Solana is illegal in mainland China. In the official’s words, as carried in the Financial News report, Solana used a domestic company to place ads and build its brand, which counts as marketing a virtual currency.
The official made three points:
- SOL is a virtual currency. Issuing it falls under the ban.
- Solana provides technical services for issuing and trading USDT and other major virtual currencies.
- Both count as illegal financial activity, so promoting Solana breaks the rules eight agencies published in February.
The bank also said what comes next. It will focus on crypto dealers inside China and on the local affiliates of offshore crypto platforms.
That last line reaches well beyond Solana.
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How the Solana China Push Fell Apart
It looked like a win for about a day.
On September 9, Solana announced Accelerate China, a four-city tour from October 16 to 22 in Shanghai, Hangzhou, Shenzhen and Beijing. On October 15, Rachel Conlan, the Solana Foundation’s chief strategy officer and Binance’s former global marketing chief, posted photos of a new Shanghai office and the Solana brand on the city’s towers. Changpeng Zhao posted that BNB Chain had never managed to advertise in China, let alone open an office there.
The next morning, the Solana Shanghai opener was called off. Some people who had signed up waited an hour and a half and never got in. The organisers’ email blamed “logistical considerations” at the venue.
Foundation president Lily Liu gave a different reason on X. Registrations had quadrupled overnight after the publicity, she wrote, far past the number registered with local authorities, so the event was postponed to stay within local rules. She said the logo on the Shanghai buildings was meant to show respect for the Chinese community.
Friday’s statement adds the part that was missing: the regulators stopped it.
Company records show who sits on the Chinese side. Shanghai Solana Enterprise Management Co. was set up in June with Claire Du, a Solana China co-lead, as its legal representative. In August it took a 45% stake in a second Shanghai company chaired by Even Jiang, the foundation’s other China co-lead. The PBOC has not named the companies it will investigate.
SIDE TRAIL: Solana Whales Sent $170M of SOL to Coinbase Institutional, Not $111M
Which Rules Did Solana Break?
The PBOC points to the notice it issued on February 6 with seven other agencies, including the securities regulator and the foreign exchange regulator. It goes further than the 2021 trading ban:
- Exchanging crypto, raising money with tokens and trading crypto products are illegal financial activities.
- Offshore companies and people may not offer crypto services to anyone in mainland China, in any form. Tokenizing real-world assets is covered too.
- Internet companies may not provide marketing, a venue or paid traffic for any of it.
Under that text, a brand campaign on a Lujiazui tower was never going to pass as a tech event.
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Did the News Move the SOL Price?
No. SOL traded around $90 before and after the report and sits at $89.92 at the time of writing, down 5.5% in 24 hours with the rest of the market.
The bigger picture is weaker. SOL has closed four weeks in a row lower on the weekly chart and is down about 15% since October 15, the day the Shanghai ads were shown off. Price is now sitting on the 200-day moving average at $89.04. Below that, the next support is the $83.50 swing low. The 50-day average, at $108.25, is far above.
The probe has no timeline yet, and the PBOC has named no companies, no people and no penalties. For the chart, the next test comes sooner: Sunday’s weekly close, and whether it holds the 200-day.
TheCryptoMonk has been trading since 2017 and reads the market from the top down. The focus is macro and the high timeframes: where stocks, rates and liquidity are heading, and what the weekly and monthly charts say about Bitcoin. Short-term noise matters less than the bigger trend.
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