Chinese Investors Find A Way To Trade Bitcoin

The Chinese government may have clamped down on bitcoin trading, but that hasn’t stopped the cryptocurrency market from booming in the country.

According to news from the South China Morning Post, traders are getting around the government regulations by trading via peer-to-peer (P2P) exchanges. With peer-to-peer trading, buyers are interacting with sellers on a one-on-one basis instead of using a centralized exchange or marketplace. The report stated China’s government has noticed the activity, with China’s National Committee of Experts on Internet Financial Security, a government-backed research group, saying “over-the-counter trading is booming. This warrants further attention.”

Back in September, concerns emerged that bitcoin demand would decrease thanks to the ban on cryptocurrency exchanges by the government of China, but it hasn’t stopped the market from surging. “After a period of caution following the September government actions, the China blockchain community is open for business,” said Matthew Graham, chief executive of Sino Global Capital, a Beijing-based technology advisory company. “We expect this to continue and even increase.”

Before October, there were only four active over-the-counter platforms for investors to trade cryptocurrency, but now there are 21 that are active in China. Since September, peer-to-peer trading in bitcoin has jumped more than 250 percent in yuan. The report cited data from LocalBitcoins, a website that enables buyers and sellers to trade directly with each other.

In addition to using peer-to-peer networks to trade bitcoin, the report noted Chinese investors are also using messaging platforms to connect individual buyers and sellers. While WeChat has long been the preferred messaging app, some Chinese traders have moved to Telegram, an encrypted communications app, over concerns the government of China is monitoring what is said on WeChat.

“Telegram is very popular for large over-the-counter trades,” said Leonhard Weese, president of the Bitcoin Association of Hong Kong. “While WeChat is used by the less paranoid.”