LONDON â€" The Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group said on Wednesday that it not allow the sale of Bitcoins on its website.
Alibaba becomes the latest in a growing chorus of governments and businesses to raise questions about Bitcoin, which has seen its value rise dramatically as more people embrace virtual currency.
“In the interest of consumer protection, Taobao Marketplace has banned the listing or sale of Bitcoins over the platform,†said Florence Shin, an Alibaba spokeswoman.
Bitcoin wasn’t an accepted form of payment on the website; the vast majority of transactions are processed through Taobao’s Alipay system. But some merchants still offered to accept Bitcoin as payments for their products or sold the virtual currency. The ban goes in effect on Jan. 14.
The announcement comes as Alibaba is considering an initial public offering as early as this year. Wall Street is anticipating that the Chinese company could be valued at more than $150 billion.
Alibaba’s decision also follows a move by China last month to ban the nation’s banks from accepting Bitcoins as a currency over concerns about potential money laundering and its potential threat to financial stability.
In a notice in December, the People’s Bank of China and other agencies said that Bitcoin was “not a currency in the real meaning of the word†but rather was a “virtual commodity that does not share the same legal status of a currency.†The notice went on, “Nor can, or should, it be circulated or used in the marketplace as a currency.â€
Bitcoin was created in 2009 and has a limited supply. As a result, the price of those units has increased as investors have bet on a continued growing demand for the virtual currency.
