Why Trump believes ‘China is big into crypto’ despite ban

President Donald Trump told 60 Minutes on November 2 that China poses a competitive threat in crypto, warning that “China is getting very big right now.”

The statement is a paradox. Beijing has banned crypto trading and mining in 2021, but Trump is framing the country as America’s main rival in the digital asset.

The disconnect likely isn’t about secret intelligence or a policy reversal that went unnoticed, but rather conflating Hong Kong’s licensed market, Beijing’s central bank’s digital currency ambitions, and gray market stablecoin flow into a single “China” narrative.

The timing matters because Hong Kong’s Securities and Futures Commission announced, during Hong Kong FinTech Week, that it will relax rules allowing licensed virtual asset platforms to tap into global order books and liquidity pools, a day later.

The move deepens Hong Kong’s integration with international crypto markets while the mainland maintains its ban.

Trump’s statement, whether intentional or not, captures a real dynamic: “China” operates simultaneously on several crypto fronts, just not the ones most people assume.

The continental ban remains operational

The People’s Bank of China declared all cryptocurrency transactions illegal on September 24, 2021, aimed at both peer-to-peer trading and mining operations.

The ban prohibits domestic exchanges, criminalizes facilitation services, and prevents foreign platforms from serving users on the continent. No major outlet or legal tracker is reporting a reversal of that frame at press time.

The ban achieved its immediate goals, which were to drive offshore exchanges, collapse domestic mining operations, and restrict retail access to speculative tokens.

What it didn’t eliminate were the reasons people wanted crypto in the first place: capital mobility, speed of cross-border settlement and distrust of intermediaries.

These forces have moved into Hong Kong’s licensed regime, moved into over-the-counter stablecoin channels, or found expression in Beijing’s digital currency project.

Hong Kong as the permissive carve-out

Hong Kong’s regulatory approach runs in the opposite direction. The SFC launched a licensing framework for virtual asset trading platforms in June 2023, granting retail access to approved tokens on compliant exchanges.

By April 2024, Hong Kong had approved the location Bitcoin and ethereum ETFs, products that previously were not available on the continent, provide institutional investors with a regulated ramp.

The November 3rd announcement further extends that permissive stance. Licensed platforms can now link to global liquidity sources instead of operating isolated order books for Hong Kong only.

The change removes a structural disadvantage, that is, the domestic market of Hong Kong alone cannot generate the depth or spread competitively with Binance o Coinbase.

The connection to international liquidity turns Hong Kong’s licensed platforms into viable alternatives for sophisticated traders seeking regulatory coverage without compromising execution quality.

This is the mechanism that makes Trump’s framing coherent even if it is technically inaccurate. When he says “China”, he is probably bundling a Special Administrative Region with de facto political autonomy in the same mental category as the continent.

Hong Kong’s moves, retail access, ETFs, and now global liquidity, create the appearance of “China” moving forward in crypto, while Beijing’s trading ban remains in place.

The CBDC layer: digital money, not crypto

Beijing’s e-CNY pilot represents the largest central bank digital currency deployment in the world by transaction volume.

Cumulative transactions will exceed ¥7 trillion by mid-2024, according to reports, covering sales payments, government payments and corporate liquidations.

Hong Kong will begin accepting e-CNY at local merchants in May 2024, linking the mainland’s digital currency infrastructure to an international financial center.

The e-CNY functions as programmable, centralized, supervised state money designed to reinforce rather than challenge Beijing’s monetary control.

It shares no philosophical DNA with Bitcoin or decentralized finance. Yet its scale and cross-border extension in Hong Kong contribute to the perception that “China” operates on the frontier of digital assets.

Trump’s remarks confuse this state-issued digital money with permissionless crypto, but the confusion traces a genuine reality. China commands the most advanced retail CBDC in production, giving it credibility when claiming leadership in digital finance even as it bans decentralized alternatives.

Chinese regulators are studying offshore yuan-backed stablecoins issued through Hong Kong, with the aim of capturing cross-border settlement flows currently dominated by dollar-pegged tokens, according to reports last year.

The proposal would allow Beijing to maintain capital controls on the mainland while offering exporters a comprehensive digital settlement tool abroad.

Gray market stablecoin adoption and hashrate

Enforcement gaps and economic incentives have created a parallel system. Chinese exporters are increasingly accepting USDT for cross-border payments, thereby removing the slow process of bank transfers and capital controls.

The adoption is not centrally coordinated, but it is widespread enough that Beijing cannot ignore it.

Stablecoin flows also increased in Russia-China trade channels as Western sanctions complicate traditional banking rails, making digital dollars a settlement layer for transactions that the formal financial system struggles to process.

This over-the-counter activity explains why the statement “China is big in crypto” feels true to traders and companies, even when the continent’s retail trade remains prohibited.

The distinction between prohibited speculation and tolerated commercial use creates space for stablecoins to function as infrastructure rather than investment assets.

Beijing has not legalized this activity, but it has not stamped it either, creating a calculated ambiguity that allows cross-border trade to continue. At the same time, the state studies how to channel these flows into manageable instruments.

In addition, China’s hashrate has not dropped to zero after the mining crackdown of 2021. The Cambridge mining map indicates ongoing activity, likely stemming from operations that have moved to remote provinces or transferred hardware abroad while retaining Chinese ownership.

More importantly, Chinese companies continue to manufacture the equipment that secures global cryptocurrency networks.

Bitmainthe dominant ASIC producer, operates out of Beijing and continues to expand its manufacturing capacity in Southeast Asia and North America.

Although it wasn’t Bitcoin mining in China, the country remained deep in the crypto infrastructure through its hardware supply chains.

Trump Says ‘China Is Big In Crypto’: What He Probably Means

Trump’s statement does not reflect a reversal of mainland policy or undisclosed intelligence. It reflects a more complex strategic reality than binary narratives allow.

The remark “China is big into crypto” collapses several distinct phenomena. Hong Kong’s licensed market is now linked to global liquidity as Beijing’s ¥7 trillion-plus CBDC program expands to Hong Kong.

Exporters are establishing trade in USDT despite capital controls, and Chinese hardware manufacturers are providing global mining infrastructure.

Hong Kong’s liquidity announcement is significant because it expands the channel through which Chinese capital can access crypto markets legally.

Licensed platforms that connect to the order books of Binance or Kraken provide mainland investors with offshore routes that look less like evasion and more like regulatory arbitrage.

The perception that “China” competes in crypto is intensifying not because Beijing lifted its ban, but because Hong Kong has built a complete alternative that achieves similar market access through a different legal architecture.

Trump campaigned to make America the crypto capital, framing the issue as a binary competition for primacy.

His remarks treat China as a unitary actor, when in reality, the country involves legal divisions, state versus private initiatives, and retail bans coexisting with institutional access.

But the core concern remains: China maintains many positions in crypto despite its domestic ban.

The competitive landscape that Trump describes exists, but it does not take the form that most assume.

The mainland ban remains intact. The threat comes from Hong Kong’s licensed alternative, Beijing’s CBDC infrastructure, and exporters using stablecoins, rather than from a sudden Chinese adoption of decentralized finance.

What Trump called “getting into this very big” is less a change in policy than a recognition that China has found ways to participate in the crypto markets without legalizing the activity that its regulators fear most, which is uncontrolled sales speculation in assets without permission.