Chinese users of Binance, FTX show holes in Beijing’s cryptocurrency ban

Nineteen months after China banned crypto, more signs have emerged that its citizens continue to buy and sell digital assets.

These glimpses of their trading activity support suspicions that some of China’s 1.4 billion people flout the prohibition Beijing imposed in September 2021 as they hunt for alternatives to investments like property and stocks.

A shadowy role for Chinese demand adds to the difficulty of parsing the outlook for digital-asset markets, which have partially revived this year from a 2022 crash pockmarked with bankruptcies like that of the FTX crypto exchange.