Ben Zhou, CEO of Bybit, said that people from mainland China can use a virtual private network to trade crypto on the site, but they won’t be able to trade yuan any time soon
A report from the South China Morning Post says that co-founder and CEO Ben Zhou told the media on December 3 that the site has no plans to accept Chinese currency. He did say that Chinese people can use the platform to deal with other countries or through a VPN.
“The primary concern of the Chinese government with cryptocurrency is its potential to facilitate the exodus of money from the country.” “That’s why we won’t cross this red line,” Zhou said.
Since June, Bybit has let Chinese citizens use identity documents from mainland China, like passports and national IDs, to sign up for the site. But Bybit still doesn’t let Chinese IP addresses through.
At the time, the move aimed to attract Chinese individuals residing outside of China. However, Zhou said that people living in China can get around the government’s crypto ban by linking to a VPN and using an IP address from a different area.
Zhou stated that the crypto exchange doesn’t attract many users from mainland China. Bybit announced at the press meeting that 40 million new users joined this year, bringing the total number of users to almost 60 million. Compared to last year, when 20 million people signed up, the number went up by almost 300%.
Zhou also said that the company will try again for a Hong Kong license in the first three months of 2019. Bybit had filed for a Hong Kong license in January of this year, but in May, they pulled their application.
Hong Kong’s government let the crypto business grow, but since 2021, trading in crypto has been illegal on the mainland of China. However, Chinese traders have still been buying cryptocurrencies even though the ban is in place.
Chainalysis says that between July 2023 and June 2024, the Chinese coin market handled almost $50 billion worth of crypto transactions.