Token Sales Still ‘Rampant’ After Chinese Central Bank Ban

China’s biggest development so far, China Central Television (CCTV) has lashed out at Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) calling it “rampant” despite a 2017 ban.

The firm explained to viewers during its “Financial News” program which was aired on Monday night, that the ICO ban issued by the People’s Bank of China last September had not deterred local investors. Instead, a get-rich-quick mentality is driving a rush into the cryptocurrency space.

CCTV went on to blast the emergence of what the Chinese crypto community calls “air coins” – a reference to token projects that are not backed by legally registered business entities – claiming that the number of air coins has increased by 30 times since the ICO crackdown.

The report stated that “While many business entities have moved their projects overseas following the ICO ban, a lot of these ‘air coins’ carried on fundraising in China without migration because they are loosely organized as a temporary team, not even a formal business entity.”

So as to have all the earmarks of being real, the report stated, a normal method utilized by such ventures is to advance their relationship with striking cryptographic money financial specialists, for example, Li Xiaolai, an early bitcoin speculator, and evangelist in China.

“99.99 percent of the time, I’m being associated with these projects without even knowing it. There’s always this fear of missing out (FOMO) among investors. And when they can’t make judgments by themselves, they tend to refer to whoever influential is associated with the project,” Li was quoted as saying in the program.

The report marks the latest effort by Chinese state media to educate the public about what it considers cryptocurrency market chaos. It also comes at a time when law enforcement agencies in China are beefing up efforts to crack down on schemes that use token sales to raise capital from the public.