Taobao, China's eBay, Bans Cryptocurrencies and Mining Hardware

China’s version of eBay, dubbed TaoBao, has made a statement today indicating they plan to ban sales of cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and the any hardware used to mine them.

The service cites recent developments in China’s legal landscape surrounding bitcoin, and Taobao expresses its desire to remain in compliance with the rules set forth by the People’s Republic of China.

Banned sales items include: bitcoin, litecoin, quarkcoin, PPCoinm, namecoin, and just about any other digital currency you can think of. Of relation, any hardware and/or software used to mine bitcoin or other digital currencies are banned. But that’s not all. Taobao is going so far as to even ban tutorials on how to mine bitcoin, et al.

Taobao is of extreme popularity in China, with over 500 million registered users. It is owned by Alibaba Group, who owns Alipay — so you can easily see the conflict here.

The ban is slated to take effect on the 14th of January.