• In a recent interview, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ) commented on the current situation of Bitcoin in China.
• According to CZ, there was a large unjustified FUD in the media, which led to a drop in Bitcoin’s price.

Changpeng Zhao, CEO of Binance, has clarified the current situation for the crypto industry in China in a recent interview with Nugget’s News. He noted that the image of regulations and practices in China is often misleading. The use of the Internet in China, similar to the West, is an integral part of everyday life.

Accordingly, there are also some large technology and Internet companies that are very successful. However, according to CZ, there is a significant difference. China strives for complete control over its population. As a result, the country is very good at blocking web content while the “Great Firewall” is widely accepted.

Owning Bitcoin is not illegal in China

CZ assumes that China will also try to implement this approach for the blockchain industry. In this regard, the statements of the Chinese President Xi Jinping has to be interpreted, that he has recognized the potential of the blockchain, but will not accept public blockchains that are not under the control of the Chinese government.

In response to a subsequent question, however, Zhao also answered that Bitcoin (BTC) is by no means banned in China. According to CZ, nothing has really changed in China in recent months. So it is still completely legal to own Bitcoin in China. In the recent past there have already been court rulings in which Chinese citizens have lost Bitcoin as an asset.

As CZ said, the Chinese government had already issued its first notification in 2013 that goods were not allowed to be bought online via Bitcoin and that the price in online shops was not allowed to be displayed in BTC. In September 2017, China imposed restrictions on trading on cryptocurrency exchanges and banned Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs).

Since 2015 China has always been “pro blockchain” and not “pro cryptocurrencies”. The latest announcements have created a hype that has driven the Bitcoin price up. When the Chinese government realized what it had triggered, CZ said, it issued a clarification that led to Bitcoin’s latest BTC price crash.

Referring to the recent Blockchain initiative, Zhao continued to say that China wants to promote the technology. They want people to understand it as well as the internet so they can use it. In this way, China can control the blockchain technology, as well as the Internet. It is also clear for CZ that China does not want to use cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum:

How it gonna shape up, we don’t know yet. But it is promoting education in blockchain, it is promoting technology development but it is very clear that it is not promoting cryptocurrencies. So China does not want to use Bitcoin or Ethereum or other coins. That much is clear.

Binance has no offices in China

Zhao reaffirmed that Binance has no offices in China. Since the September 2017 ban on cryptocurrency exchanges in China, after which Binance left the country in October 2017, Binance does not maintain a single office at all. Both Binance’s employees and himself only travelled to China for business meetings and conferences.

When CZ was asked directly about the reported “raids” of Binance offices in China, he explained:

we do not have legal entities in China. It is not technically possible for Binance to rent a office. So we don’t have an office. We even made a couple of investments in China. So we have portfolio companies that have people in China. We most recently invested in a company in China that is also operating out of Beijing. So they have offices in China. But they really have no relationship with the exchange Binance.

The office which made the news is used by an outsourced customer service office, it’s not a Binance office. There was no police raid – that was bad irresponsible journalism

Zhao’s perspective on the digital yuan

When asked about the introduction of the digital yuan, CZ said that the reports in the media were also not entirely correct. In his view, the Chinese government is aiming for a digital currency that can be used for online payments. But it probably won’t be a currency like Bitcoin that can be used for anything. He also added that there is not yet enough information to judge how the digital yuan can be used.

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