Coinbase Reportedly Opens Easier Access for Mainland China: Test of Tolerance or Calculated Gamble?

Coinbase has reportedly begun accepting Chinese national IDs and mainland addresses for account verification, based on user reports circulating on July 14. Reports suggest Coinbase staff confirmed the change for users in China.

Responding to BeInCrypto’s request for comment, Mary-Kate Collins, head of international communications at Coinbase, pointed to the company’s offshore platform without directly confirming the mainland verification change.

“Coinbase International Exchange allows customers in more than 100 countries to onboard and trade a variety of products, including crypto, equities and commodities.”

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Coinbase has made no public announcement, and its own support documentation still lists a passport as the only accepted document for the country. The gap leaves the scope of the change unclear.

Coinbase Reports Contradict Official China Documentation

Until now, mainland residents faced steep verification hurdles. The process previously required a Chinese passport and a Hong Kong address, documents many potential users lack.

Multiple social media users posted screenshots of successful sign-ups on Monday. The company’s help center still tells a different story.

Its identity verification page lists a passport as the sole supported document for China and marks proof of address as not available. The discrepancy may reflect a staged rollout. However, Coinbase has confirmed nothing, and access could narrow as quickly as it appeared.

Testing the Limits of Beijing’s Crypto Ban

The People’s Bank of China and nine other agencies outlawed crypto trading in a September 2021 notice. It declared services from offshore exchanges to mainland residents illegal financial activity. Huobi, then among the largest exchanges globally, stopped accepting Chinese users within days.

Enforcement has tightened since. Regulators widened the crypto ban to stablecoins and tokenization in February, while a separate offshore broker crackdown hit mainland trading channels in May.

Coinbase is not first through the door. OKX and other rivals have long served some Chinese users through offshore channels.

The difference lies in visibility. A US-listed exchange easing mainland onboarding invites scrutiny that offshore competitors rarely attract, particularly as Washington frames crypto as strategic competition with China.

The scale of what Beijing shut down is measurable. Cambridge data showed China produced over 75% of global Bitcoin (BTC) hashrate, the network’s computing power, in September 2019. That share collapsed to near zero by July 2021 after the mining ban.

Even partial re-entry by mainland retail would therefore represent a meaningful pool of demand. For users, though, the legal exposure is real. Trading remains prohibited for mainland residents regardless of which platform accepts their documents.

Both readings of the move can be true at once. For Beijing, tolerance is now being tested in public. For Coinbase, a rollout with no announcement and unchanged documentation looks like a gamble kept deliberately reversible.

China’s ban-or-build crypto approach has so far channeled regulated activity through Hong Kong. Updated help pages in the coming weeks would signal commitment. Quietly closed doors would answer the question the other way.

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