FUNDRAISING HALTED.
On 4 September 2017, seven Chinese authorities issued a joint notice ordering token fundraising, including initial coin offerings, to stop. A fast-growing route for raising money through newly issued tokens had met a national regulatory barrier.
The notice described token fundraising as unauthorized and illegal public financing. It identified risks including illegal securities issuance, fundraising fraud and pyramid schemes. This was a regulatory assessment of the activity; it was not a finding that every individual project had committed each offence.
Organizers of completed offerings were told to make arrangements to unwind them and protect investors. The refund tray in the illustration gives that requirement a human scale: behind the token-sale promises were people waiting to recover their money.
The order also restricted token-financing platforms from exchanging legal tender for tokens or virtual currencies, trading them as a central counterparty, or providing pricing and intermediary services. Financial and payment institutions were barred from providing services for token fundraising and related trading.
The scene imagines the interruption as officials arriving at a neon-lit fundraising market. Its characters, stalls and police encounter are fictional, not a documented raid. The 2017 notice did not establish a blanket ban on possessing every cryptocurrency, and it was not the later mining crackdown.
Sources & the artist’s interpretation
Sources: Joint Chinese regulatory notice, 4 September 2017 ; NDRC and partner authorities: mining notice, September 2021 . Characters, police visit and market props are fictional visual storytelling, not a documented raid. FUNDRAISING HALTED. is editorial wording, not an official quotation. No specific project's wrongdoing is alleged.
