Deribit and OKX attract significant traffic from China despite a blanket ban: report

Recent geographical traffic data highlights that Chinese traders continue to access centralized exchanges despite a regulatory risk.

Data from website traffic metric provider Similarweb shows that Deribit and OKX continue to attract significant traffic sources from China despite a blanket ban on crypto transactions and foreign exchanges last year.

China has banned the use of cryptocurrencies more than a dozen times in the last decade, however, the one imposed in September last year was considered the harshest one.

Several crypto exchanges including Huobi and Binance had shut doors for the Chinese traders in fear of regulatory action. The strict regulatory reforms ensured that Chinese traders mainly shifted their focus to decentralized exchanges and protocols.

Chinese crypto traders have always found a way to bypass strict crypto regulatory measures imposed by the government. While many believed the blanket ban on crypto use would be a death nail for the largely underground crypto market in China, geographical traffic data shows otherwise.

A Cointelegraph exclusive report highlighted the rise in the use of virtual private networks among Chinese traders after the blanket ban. Recent data from Similarweb verifies that Chinese traders are still flocking to centralized derivatives platforms such as OKX and Deribit.

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Huobi was the primary choice of Chinese crypto traders as they accounted for more than 30% of the trading volume on the exchange before the blanket ban. However, now Deribit leads the chart in terms of Chinese traffic with a 12% share followed by OKX with 9.6%.

Another prominent reason for the rise in traffic on derivative exchanges could be the lack of strict KYC measures when compared to the likes of Huobi and Binance.

The geographical data shows that Russia, South Korea, the United States, and Turkey were the biggest traffic source on centralized exchanges like Binance and Coinbase. Bybit and FTX were the most visited crypto exchanges in the month of April.