The price of bitcoin has plummeted after BTC China, more commonly known as BTCC and world’s oldest exchange, announced Thursday that it will cease trading in China due to the Chinese government’s ongoing crackdown on all things crypto.

BTCC was forced to fall on its sword after the central government decreed earlier this week that bitcoin exchanges were illegal. According to local media (badly translated from Chinese), the Shanghai Financial Office issued a “verbal order to shut down the trading platform to exit market,” without naming BTCC specifically. Translated, means that the Chinese government, through a regulatory body, ordered BTCC to shut down.

Although BTCC is the only Chinese bitcoin exchange to announce that it is closing down in China — it will presumably continue trading outside the country — others are likely to follow. Coindesk, quoting another Chinese media source, claimed that “Shanghai’s Municipal Financial Service Office has issued a verbal order to bitcoin exchange startups, indicating that they should cease operations.” The same report noted that it’s also not clear whether the ban only extends to bitcoin exchanges or all trading of bitcoin outright, such as with peer-to-peer bitcoin services.

The ban on bitcoin exchanges by China comes after a crackdown on initial coin offerings, which itself was an extension of an investigation into bitcoin launched back in January.

Despite the fact the world knew that China had banned bitcoin exchanges four days ago, BTCC’s announcement apparently brought the fact home to bitcoin traders, so the price of bitcoin fell off a medium-sized cliff.

As of Thursday evening in the U.S., bitcoin was trading at $3,429, down from a price 24 hours earlier of over $4,000. Going back a week, bitcoin was priced at nearly $4,700, and at its 12-month peak, it hit just under $5,000 apiece.

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