Many people are curious:
Since cryptocurrency is so popular, why does the domestic attitude remain cautious?
The reason is not complicated—it touches on the two most core systems of the country: foreign exchange management and tax regulation.
First, let's talk about foreign exchange.
In the domestic market, if you want to exchange 5 million RMB from selling a house in a first-tier city to 700,000 USD and transfer it out, legal channels are almost all restricted:
Individuals have an annual foreign exchange purchase limit of 50,000 USD, and there are similar restrictions on cross-border remittances. If you want to rely on a family member's limit? It would take at least ten years.
Want to borrow limits from others? Continuously using the quotas of three or four people may attract significant attention.
If you want to take RMB out and then exchange it for foreign currency, the limits are even smaller; as for directly remitting RMB out, that is strictly prohibited.
All legal paths are almost completely blocked, just to ensure that foreign exchange does not flow out chaotically.
However, the emergence of crypto assets has directly disrupted this entire system.
No limits, no approvals, no intermediaries—just a few addresses are needed to complete the value transfer across borders.
If you convert 5 million to cryptocurrency, store it in a hardware wallet, the difficulty of taking it away is no different from carrying a USB drive.
As long as you don't actively expose it, it is almost impossible to trace.
From a macro perspective, this is already close to completely bypassing foreign exchange controls.
Now, let's talk about taxes.
Crypto assets are decentralized, highly anonymous, do not rely on the banking system, and do not go through traditional payment channels.
This means that once they are fully legalized, highly data-driven regulatory systems like the Golden Tax Phase IV would immediately lose a significant portion of their effectiveness.
Capital flows, transaction flows, and revenue flows would be difficult to track effectively, making tax collection naturally passive.
Essentially, cryptocurrency is like "digital precious metals":
Decentralized, hard to trace, able to store value, and capable of rapid cross-border movement.
Precious metals exited circulation back in the day because they were inconvenient to carry;
But crypto assets have no such physical barriers and are instead smoother and easier to use, much like Alipay—that is the key.
So why is the domestic attitude towards crypto cautious?
In one sentence:
It touches the most sensitive lifeline of the national regulatory system and is very difficult to control.
