China’s leading smartphone manufacturer Xiaomi has announced that the recent advertisement for Bitcoin and crypto payment made by the Portugese MI store has no connection with the company’s operation. A Facebook advertisement posted by the MI store indicated that it would accept payments in Bitcoin and a few other cryptocurrencies.
Xiaomi said that the Portuguese MI store is a third-party authorized independent entity and later the store also clarified it has no relations with the Chinese smartphone manufacturer.
“Xiaomi responded that cryptocurrency payments was published by Mi Store Portugal, a authorized partner of the Mi Store in Portugal. This partner is operating independently in the local area and is not related to the operation of Xiaomi company.”, said Colin Wu, Chinese journalist.
Xiaomi’s move to discard the Portuguese Xiaomi store has come as an indication that it doesn’t want to associate itself with crypto-related promotions, given the recent Chinese crackdown. Chinese journalist, Colin WuWu pointed out that Xiaomi founder, Lei Jun is one of the deep-pocket investors in large-scale crypto organizations like OKCoin conflux and certik,
As a Chinese company, Xiaomi is afraid of being involved in supporting cryptocurrency payments that violate Chinese laws. But on the other hand, Xiaomi founder Lei Jun has invested in many cryptocurrency companies, such as okcoin conflux and certik.
— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) August 6, 2021
The MI Store has stated they will accept crypto payments in Bitcoin ( BTC), Ether (ETH), Tether (USDT), Dash (DASH), and Utrust (UTK) tokens.
Crypto Partner pulls announcement tweet
Utrust (UTK) token is part of Xiaomi Portugal’s partnership with the European blockchain technology payment platform, Utrust that facilitated the crypto payment services to buy Xiaomi phones. However, Utrust has pulled its partnership tweet, upon Xiaomi’s announcement of having no relations with the Mi store in Portugal.
“Mi Store Portugal, the official Xiaomi retailer, now accepts #crypto payments! Xiaomi is the m,2nd largest phone manufacturer in the world, and now their local branch is accepting the Money of Tomorrow.”, Utrust tweeted and later deleted.
China to “maintain” crypto crackdown
The Chinese government has announced to maintain the crypto crackdown policies in the country during the second half of 2021. In a conference on July 31, the People’s Bank of China reached a consensus to “maintain” high pressure on digital currency trading in China, by encouraging and enabling trade and exchange platforms to adhere to regulatory requirements and rectify their operations for the same.
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