Original report published Nov. 6, 2026, at 20:15:28 UTC+8.
Chinese authorities halted the Solana Accelerate event in Shanghai over alleged unauthorized promotional activities involving domestic entities, according to a Friday report by China’s state-backed Financial News, cited by Cointelegraph.
The report and an earlier explanation from Solana Foundation president Lily Liu offered different accounts of the event’s disruption. Neither provides a basis for measuring broader Solana adoption in China.
Promotion allegations and the organizers’ explanation
Financial News cited an unidentified official from a department of the People’s Bank of China (PBOC). The official alleged that Solana had promoted its brand through domestic entities, including advertisements on a building in Shanghai’s Lujiazui financial district.
The official also claimed that Solana provides technical services supporting cryptocurrency issuance and trading, describing those services as illegal financial activities under Chinese regulations.
In an Oct. 16 post on X, Liu said organizers had postponed the Shanghai event to “comply with local requirements” after registrations unexpectedly quadrupled, exceeding the event cap pre-registered with local authorities.
That reported fourfold increase concerned event registrations—not network users or onchain activity. The supplied report gives no absolute registration count or comparison window for the increase, so it cannot establish the scale or durability of demand.
A second reported disruption in mainland China
The Shanghai halt marked the second reported disruption of a Solana event in mainland China in two years. An October 2025 event in Shenzhen was cut short over venue-capacity and public-safety concerns, according to an X announcement by Solana’s Chinese-speaking community.
The Shanghai allegations also illustrate how China’s crypto restrictions can reach beyond trading to promotional activity. In a February notice, the PBOC and several other agencies reinforced crypto-related restrictions and added a ban on the unauthorized issuance of yuan-pegged stablecoins.
For assessing adoption, the distinction matters: increased interest in attending an event is a narrower signal than sustained network use, while the reported halt highlights constraints on organizing and promoting crypto-related gatherings.
