Alibaba announces crypto bans on its platform

Alibaba (NYSE:BABA) says it is following Beijing's directives and stopping sales of crypto miners and currencies. The China tech giant says that after "thorough evaluation, taking into account the instability of laws and regulations on virtual currencies and relevant products in various international markets, Alibaba.com will prohibit the sale of virtual currency miners." In addition it will stop sale cryptocurrencies "such as" Bitcoin (BTC-USD) -5%, Litecoin (LTC-USD) -4%, Ethereum (ETH-USD) -6.5% and smaller coins like BeaoCoin and QuarkCoin. The bans go into effect Oct. 8. BABA is up 1.7% in premarket trading. Bitcoin fell back below $43K yesterday as exchanges restricted accounts from China. Of Friday the PBOC escalated its crypto crackdown, declaring all crypto transactions illegal.