As China closes its doors to cryptocurrencies, exchanges shift their attention overseas
‘It’s an end, as well as a new beginning,’ said OkCoin, one of China’s most popular exchanges in a statement
Some Chinese bitcoin exchanges – having had their trading officially ordered to halt last month as the cryptocurrency comes under renewed scrutiny by the domestic authorities – have turned their attention instead to selling overseas.
The mainland’s ban on transaction between renminbi and digital assets at exchanges came into effect on Tuesday. That followed banning fundraising through initial coin offerings in early September.
But now it seems some operators have already started looking elsewhere for business.
ZB.com, an overseas platform operated by Chinese digital currency exchange chbtc, has said it will make an international trading function available from Wednesday, allowing users to first sign up for accounts and deposits.
The Chinese-English bilingual site offers price quotations for nine cryptocurrencies including bitcoin and ethereum, the two largest by value. Transactions can either be denominated in bitcoin or USDT, a token created by Tether which has an equivalent value to US dollar.