Buying and Selling Bitcoins in China
Bitcoin has become so popular in recent years. This cryptocurrency based on the blockchain technology is getting more and more attention from people around the world. If you have been paying attention to the cryptocurrency and bitcoin news recently, you must know that the price of bitcoin has increased many hundreds of times in a short period of time!
Why Buying and Selling Bitcoins in China Is Difficult
When it comes to selling and buying bitcoins in China, it's more difficult to do so at this moment. That's because the Chinese government decided to shut down local bitcoin exchanges such as OKCoin, Huobi etc. in 2017. As a result, people in China will no longer be able to buy and sell bitcoins with their RMB as easy as before.
As a matter of fact, bitcoin used to be very popular in China. The bitcoin trading volume used to be extremely high in China, just before the Chinese local bitcoin exchanges closed their door.
In addition, shortly after closing all bitcoin exchanges in China, the Chinese government then blocked internet access to almost all major foreign cryptocurrency exchanges, making it even more difficult to buy and sell bitcoins in China. Chinese bitcoin traders now need a good China VPN (they call it "翻墙VPN" in Chinese) to access foreign crypto exchanges.
Facing the problem of not being able to trade bitcoins at local bitcoin exchanges in China, many Chinese people have turned to other methods to buy and sell bitcoin.
Common Methods for Buying and Selling Bitcoins in China
Buying ant Selling Bitcoin in China Offline
Some people trade bitcoin offline, meaning buying and selling face-to-face. This kind of old-fashion method works, but it clearly has many dis-advantages, including not easy to find a trading partner and security issues etc.
Buying and Selling Bitcoin in China At a Foreign Bitcoin Exchange
You can still buy and sell bitcoins in China at a foreign crypto exchange such as Binance, Kraken etc. However, as mentioned above, you might need to use VPN to visit their websites because all foreign crypto exchanges' websites are blocked in China now. In addition, you might need to have an international bank account for buying and selling bitcoin at an exchange that's not operating in China. Since opening such a foreign bitcoin exchange account is not an easy task for most people in China, the usage of foreign bitcoin exchanges in China is not as high as compared to other countries.
Buying and Selling Bitcoin in China Via OTC Trading
Some people in China have been using OTC (over the counter) bitcoin exchanges to buy and sell bitcoins in China. This kind of bitcoin exchanges includes localbitcoins.com etc. and can be used as a platform or middle-man for people to trade bitcoins in a peer-to-peer fashion. Actually, OTC trading has some advantages. First of tall, you don't need to have a foreign bank account for bitcoin OTC trading. You can even buy and sell bitcoin using WeChat and AliPay. Also, OTC platforms such as LocalBitcoins can ensure your trading is secure, which is much better than trading bitcoins offline.
For example, below is a screenshot from LocalBitcoin's page for buying and selling Bitcoins in China:
Buying and Selling Bitcoins in China: The Future
Some people suspected that the Chinese government might allow bitcoin exchanges to operate in China again in the near future. If that's the case, it will make buying and selling bitcoins in China become much easier. However, there's no such news so far.