BTCC, the Chinese mainland’s first and longest-running bitcoin exchange, has been acquired by an unnamed Hong Kong-based blockchain investment fund.

The deal came after mainland regulators launched a crackdown on virtual currency trading last year.

BTCC, which was known as BTC China when it was founded in 2011 and run by American Bobby Lee, was purchased for undisclosed terms.

The company will now focus exclusively on the international market and its three major products, BTCC Pool, Mobi and USD Exchange, which will be led by Denver Zhao, Mark Ma and Aaron Choi, respectively.

“We now have the resources to more fully realize our vision of safeguarding and stabilizing digital currencies’ blockchains,” said Zhao, BTCC’s senior vice president of BTCC Mining Pool, according to a statement.

“Going forward, we’ll provide better, fairer, more transparent, and more comprehensive mining services to our customers worldwide.”

BTCC is one of the top three bitcoin exchanges by trading volume in China. The other two are Huobi and OKCoin.

Since September last year, however, the exchange has stopped trading for China-based customers upon instructions from the government.

Earlier last month, China escalated its crackdown on cryptocurrency trading. Officials plan to block domestic access to local and offshore platforms that enable centralized trading, Bloomberg quoted unidentified people as saying.

China began its clampdown on the market last year by banning initial coin offerings first, and then calling on local exchanges to stop trading in cryptocurrencies. (SD-Agencies)