Bybit crypto exchange says mainland Chinese can trade through VPN, but not with yuan

Bybit, a cryptocurrency exchange with Chinese roots that is now one of the world’s largest by trading volume, said mainland Chinese users are free to trade on the platform if connected through a virtual private network (VPN), but it will not allow trading in yuan.

Bybit announced earlier this year that mainland Chinese citizens would be allowed to trade on its platform overseas because so many users urged it to do so, and because the company felt that the risks were “acceptable”, co-founder and CEO Ben Zhou said in a media briefing on Tuesday. However, the platform does not intend to accept China’s currency.

“What the Chinese government dislikes the most about crypto is that it can facilitate capital outflow,” Zhou said. “So we won’t touch this red line.”

The move was meant to attract the “overseas Chinese community”, the company said at the time, but Zhou noted on Tuesday that this also means people currently living on the mainland can trade on the platform by connecting to a VPN, which uses an IP address in another jurisdiction.

Still, Bybit has not seen a lot of new users from mainland China, according to Zhou, who said the company expected this given its restrictions on accepting yuan.