Chinese authorities halted the Solana Accelerate event in Shanghai over alleged unauthorized promotional activities involving domestic entities, according to state-backed Financial News, as reported by Cointelegraph on Nov. 6, 2026. Organizers had offered a different explanation: registration exceeded the event’s approved capacity.
Two accounts of the disruption
Financial News cited an unidentified official from a department of the People’s Bank of China (PBOC). The official alleged that Solana 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. These allegations were attributed to the unnamed official, rather than independently established in the supplied report.
In an Oct. 16 X post, Solana Foundation president Lily Liu said organizers postponed the Shanghai event to “comply with local requirements.” She said registrations unexpectedly quadrupled, exceeding the event cap pre-registered with local authorities.
The report does not resolve the difference between the promotion-related allegations and the organizers’ capacity explanation.
A second reported disruption in mainland China
The Shanghai incident marked the second reported disruption of a Solana event in mainland China within two years. An October 2025 event in Shenzhen was also cut short over venue-capacity and public-safety concerns, according to an X announcement from Solana’s Chinese-speaking community.
The Shanghai report draws attention to restrictions reaching beyond cryptocurrency trading to event promotion and related services. In a February notice, the PBOC and several other agencies reiterated crypto-related restrictions and added a ban on unauthorized issuance of yuan-pegged stablecoins.
Original source: Cointelegraph, published Nov. 6, 2026, at 20:15:28 UTC+8.