AliExpress is part of Alibaba group marketed more at international clients. But its base of operations is still in China. While bitcoin is not 'banned' in china as yet. Alibaba group is expecting that it could be indeed happen in the future. As chinese government is a whimsical about this since long time ago. That is mostly the reason they are not open to bitcoin transactions yet.
They could still accept it in the meantime. It shouldn't be that difficult (or costly) to add it as an option, and I'm sure it would pay for itself long before a ban came (if it ever did). I really don't think China will do a full ban on cryptos.
Well since crypto is not central you can't really ban it, but you can ban the exchanges so the chinese would only be able to send it back and forth. Accepting it is a big operation, you have to figure out how to convert the funds and send it along..
I wonder if China has a form of Bitpay/Coinbase? That may be where the issue lies, come to think about it. I wasn't thinking about having to sell the coins/convert them as part of the process. If they had a system like those, that may alter their decision.
Don't think anyone has the balls to set one up, if china bans it your money is gone, well at least your bank accounts which probably will have lots in them
Well, think about it like this. If China doesn't have regulation around cryptos yet (I don't believe they do, in terms of barrier to entry), it should be cheap to set up a service.
The service can mitigate risk by charging fees. In the US, we're looking at what, 0.5%-1%? But that's due to the amount of competition. In China, this is mitigated, so a higher fee can be warranted. Even a 3-5% fee would likely be better than what they have.
That money should offset any potential issues in the future. I think if someone did things smart, they should be able to create a viable system.
