As of 2025, China has banned all crypto payments, mining, and ownership. The e-CNY digital yuan is the only legal digital currency. Learn how the ban works, what’s illegal, and why China won’t back down.
China Cryptocurrency Ban: What It Means for Crypto Users and Global Markets
When China cryptocurrency ban, a sweeping government policy that outlawed crypto trading, mining, and financial services in 2021. Also known as crypto prohibition in China, it didn’t just target coins—it shut down entire infrastructure layers like mining farms and exchange servers inside the country. This wasn’t a minor policy tweak. It was the largest single regulatory shock the crypto world had ever seen.
The ban didn’t happen in a vacuum. It was tied to the rise of the digital yuan, China’s state-controlled central bank digital currency (CBDC) designed to replace private cryptocurrencies and maintain financial oversight. Also known as e-CNY, the digital yuan gave the government full visibility into every transaction, something no decentralized coin could offer. Meanwhile, crypto regulation China, a term that now refers to the strict, zero-tolerance enforcement framework. Also known as crypto crackdown, it forced exchanges like Binance and OKX to exit mainland operations, and miners to relocate to Kazakhstan, the U.S., and other countries. The result? Global Bitcoin hash rate dropped by over 50% overnight. Trading volumes in yuan-based pairs collapsed. And for ordinary Chinese citizens, holding crypto became a legal gray zone—technically allowed if you didn’t trade it, but risky if you did.
What’s left today isn’t a dead market—it’s a shadow one. Crypto is still traded through P2P platforms, offshore apps, and informal networks. But the ban changed everything: mining is gone, exchanges are banned, and even crypto-related job postings are scrubbed from Chinese job boards. The government didn’t just ban coins—it banned the culture around them. That’s why you’ll find posts here about China cryptocurrency ban effects on global liquidity, how miners adapted, and why Chinese users now rely on privacy tools and cross-border wallets. You’ll also see how other countries, like Russia and Iraq, followed similar paths with their own restrictions. This collection doesn’t just list facts—it shows you the real ripple effects: who lost, who adapted, and how the rules of crypto shifted forever after 2021.