Binance, the major cryptocurrency exchange, has planned to provide trading services for mainland Chinese customers despite the local ban.
On June 9, it has been reported by China National Radio (CNR) that Changpeng Zhao (CZ), the CEO of Binance, has been promoting a website called “binancezh.com” on his Weibo page.
However, Binance moved overseas soon after the crackdown and is currently headquartered in the Cayman Islands and Seychelles, which originally founded in China a few months prior to the local 2017 ban prohibiting cryptocurrency trading.
It has been analyzed that 8btc, a local cryptocurrency news outlet, has noted that “zh” can be short for the Mandarin word “zhongwen,” meaning “Chinese”. While the website allows visitors to choose among a dozen language choices, it seems to be redirected to the Chinese version no matter what language gets selected.
Likewise, a Beijing-based CNR reporter was allegedly able to register an account on binancezh.com after uploading ID documents and completing face verification through the exchange’s mobile app. Then, the journalist apparently completed a Chinese Yuan-to-BTC trade over the exchange’s over-the-counter (OTC) desk.
A Beijing-based reporter was allegedly able to trade crypto via a Binance-affiliated website https://t.co/xULdT5p23G — Cointelegraph (@Cointelegraph) June 10, 2020
Binance said that the exchange’s app is not available on the Chinese market, adding that if “mainland users are overseas or use overseas IDs for transactions, it is more difficult to identify them.”
For binancezh.com, Binance reportedly explained that it is a “test site” used mostly by Egyptian residents by citing data from web traffic analysis company Alexa.
Alexa said that nearly half of the visitors seem to be coming from Egypt, while the US and Hong Kong come next with 6.8% and 5.8% respectively.
However, an equivalent search result on SimilarWeb shows that almost 80% of the website’s traffic comes from China, while Egypt constitutes a humble 8%.
As per the report, data from who.is shows that the website was registered by Alibaba Cloud Computing (Beijing) Co., Ltd., while the registrant’s state is the Cayman Islands.
A Binance spokesperson said:
“Binancezh.com is a test site that we do not advertise or market to the public.”
In May 2020, Binance officially registered a different Chinese domain (binance.cn) with China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT).
Thus, CZ explained that Binance’s Chinese domain will initially focus on “education and technology” instead of crypto, which seems to align with China’s “blockchain before Bitcoin” policy.
Source: Cointelegraph | Image: Cryptopolitan