Solana China probe: central bank halted the Oct. 16 event

The quick take

Price: $SOL traded at $90.60, down 4.6% in 24 hours, as of 7:40 a.m. ET (CoinGecko).
Trigger: A People’s Bank of China official told the bank’s own newspaper that authorities halted Solana’s Oct. 16 Shanghai event.
Watch: Whether officials name the local firms, people or penalties; none were named on Friday.

The Solana China probe came into the open on Friday. An official of the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) said authorities halted the Shanghai event of Solana ($SOL) over promotion through local companies, Cointelegraph and BeInCrypto report.

The interview ran on Nov. 6 in Financial News, a paper run by the central bank. The official was not named in either report.

What happened

The event was the Shanghai stop of Solana Accelerate China 2026. BeInCrypto says it was planned for Oct. 16 at a Shangri-La hotel and was stopped before the doors opened.

The official said Solana used domestic companies to promote its brand. That included ads on a tower in Lujiazui, Shanghai’s main financial district. BeInCrypto names the building as the Citigroup Tower.

The official also said Solana offers technical services used to issue and trade crypto tokens. Both outlets say Beijing treats this as illegal financial activity. BeInCrypto adds a second reason given: the official called $SOL itself a virtual currency.

BeInCrypto reports that the PBOC worked alongside police, market supervisors and local financial regulators. It says the bank now plans to look into the firms and people involved. No company, person or penalty was named.

Two accounts of the same day

On Oct. 16, organizers gave a different reason. Solana Foundation president Lily Liu wrote on X that sign-ups had quadrupled overnight, Cointelegraph reports. That pushed the event above the cap it had registered with local officials, so it was postponed.

BeInCrypto says guests got an email that morning blaming venue logistics, with no word about police. The outlet also reported that day that officers held guests outside the venue for over an hour. The PBOC account now says the authorities stopped it.

This is not the first time. Cointelegraph counts it as the second reported break in two years for a Solana event on the Chinese mainland. In October 2025, a Solana event in Shenzhen was cut short over venue size and public-safety concerns.

Why it moved

$SOL traded at $90.60 at 7:40 a.m. ET, down 4.6% in 24 hours, according to CoinGecko. Jupiter’s price was within 0.1% of that reading.

The drop matched the wider market. Bitcoin ($BTC) lost 4.6% and Ether ($ETH) 6.6% over the same 24 hours, per LiveCoinWatch. BeInCrypto also notes that the slide may not be about China alone, so a direct link to the probe is not confirmed.

The statement also changes little for buyers inside China. Crypto trading has been banned on the mainland since 2021, BeInCrypto notes, so residents could not legally buy $SOL at home before Friday either.

Who’s buying and selling

Sellers led on the largest $SOL pool, the SOL/USDC pool on Orca. DexScreener counted 57,605 sell trades and 50,339 buys in 24 hours. GeckoTerminal showed 57,437 sells and 50,157 buys for the same pool.

Solana’s DeFi apps held $5.3 billion in deposits, and its exchanges handled $2.2 billion in trades over 24 hours, DefiLlama data show. Those totals give the scale of the network the probe touches, but not its local reach.

What to watch next

Names and penalties: BeInCrypto says the next targets are local crypto dealers and the China-based units of foreign platforms. A named firm would be the first concrete step.
The rest of the tour: BeInCrypto says stops in Hangzhou, Shenzhen and Beijing were listed, and that the PBOC described events beyond Shanghai as halted too.
The February rules: Both outlets tie the action to a February notice. BeInCrypto says eight agencies signed it and that it bars overseas firms from serving mainland users without approval; Cointelegraph adds a ban on unapproved yuan-pegged stablecoins.
Solana’s reply: Neither report carries a new statement from the Solana Foundation after the PBOC interview.

Bottom line: China’s central bank now says it stopped Solana’s Shanghai event and is looking at local partners, while $SOL’s 4.6% drop tracks a wider market fall.