Cryptocurrency traders in China appear to have found numerous ways to circumvent the nationwide ban on trading with digital currencies. According to industry experts, as long as the transactions remain peer-to-peer and decentralized, regulators won’t be able to block them out completely.
TETHER AND VPNS TO THE RESCUE
Quoting sources familiar to the matter, South China Morning Post reports that many retail investors, in addition to using illegal cryptocurrency exchanges, would convert their fiat into stablecoin Tether, and exchange between cryptocurrency wallets directly. All online actions are carried out through a Virtual Private Network (VPN) in order to protect the anonymity of the trader and to circumvent the restrictions.
The government hasn’t taken any actions on blocking VPNs, even though a source close to the matter revealed that:
Some companies like Tencent have officially confirmed that they’d block transactions, or ban accounts, associated with cryptocurrency trading. How such accounts or transactions would be identified, though, is yet to be revealed.
Read more: https://bitcoinist.com/china-cryptocurrency-tether-vpn-bypass-ban/
TETHER AND VPNS TO THE RESCUE
Quoting sources familiar to the matter, South China Morning Post reports that many retail investors, in addition to using illegal cryptocurrency exchanges, would convert their fiat into stablecoin Tether, and exchange between cryptocurrency wallets directly. All online actions are carried out through a Virtual Private Network (VPN) in order to protect the anonymity of the trader and to circumvent the restrictions.
The government hasn’t taken any actions on blocking VPNs, even though a source close to the matter revealed that:
Quote
Chinese regulators definitely have the technical ability to shut down VPNs. […] However, traditionally it takes numerous conversations with different stakeholders to reach a consensus on configuring a firewall, which lengthens the process.
Some companies like Tencent have officially confirmed that they’d block transactions, or ban accounts, associated with cryptocurrency trading. How such accounts or transactions would be identified, though, is yet to be revealed.
Read more: https://bitcoinist.com/china-cryptocurrency-tether-vpn-bypass-ban/
Interesting piece.
I think it demonstrates the benefits of having a decentralized currency, which in a way, is extremely resilient to government bans and censorship. When China banned local exchanges, people would simply have moved to foreign exchanges like Binance. And when these were blocked as well, they simply moved onto another method, p2p trading or the use of VPNs and pegged cryptos as this article suggests. Bans on bitcoin can happen, but they are impossible to enforce on a national level, which is why bitcoin is so useful.
The thing is that there are also legitimate industries which require the use of a VPN, which makes the blocking of VPNs unfeasible. Also, I'm sure that even if they were blocked, soon there will be more loopholes that would open up to get out of the restrictions of the great firewall.
