Traders meet in public places such as cafes, snack kiosks, and even laundromats to swap wallet addresses, arrange bank transfers, or pay for crypto using cash, the WSJ reported, citing people familiar with the trades.
They also use social media apps like WeChat and Telegram, where dedicated groups allow buyers and sellers to transact directly without the medium of an exchange.
Physical trading is most popular in China’s inland, as places further from the coast are generally poorer, so local governments are preoccupied with other matters, lacking the enforcement of the central bank’s crypto ban.
If crypto trading remains somewhat alive and well in an authoritarian country such as China, it may not bode well for other jurisdictions that wish to take a sterner approach to policing cryptocurrency in the future.
