Chinese traders are seemingly paying no attention to the government’s biggest cryptocurrency crackdown since 2017 amid the hard-to-trace nature of crypto letting traders make secretive bets.

Hard-to-Trace Nature of Crypto Makes it Difficult for Complete Ban

Data from Chinese crypto platform Feixiaohao suggests that the exchange rate between China’s yuan and Tether stablecoin fell by as much as 4.4% after the government’s announcement on cryptocurrency crackdown but has since then recovered half of its loss.

The hard-to-trace nature of crypto transactions on local OTC platforms and peer-to-peer networks makes it extremely difficult for the government to enforce a complete ban.

With the government’s announcement to ban cryptocurrency mining and trading, Charles a real estate consultant in Shanghai told Bloomberg “I don’t care.”

He claims to be buying cryptocurrencies since 2017 and has lost $11 million over three days in the recent pullback.

“To me, it’s giving back the profits I made in the past few months. I’m looking at the 10- to 20-year horizon,” he adds.

Chinese Renew Call for Crypto Crackdown

Before China outlawed crypto exchanges in 2017, local investors owned an estimated 7% of the world’s Bitcoin and accounted for about 80% of trading according to data from state media. The current crypto exchange ban has made it impossible to derive the correct statistics as of today.

Chinese investors are still widely believed to have a major presence in the crypto world via domestic OTC platforms and offshore venues accessed through virtual private networks.

Despite this, regulators have reminded Chinese banks and payments firms to identify and block suspicious transactions involving cryptocurrencies.

Beijing police have gone so far as to distribute printed warnings about the potential risks associated with cryptocurrencies.  Virtual currencies are among popular means for the latest scams, and anyone “in a panic, having a hard time distinguishing or not sure what to do” should call the local police contact listed, reads one notice.

Just two years earlier, China announced a similar cryptocurrency crackdown after frauds and defaults became rampant with more than 50 million users and $150 billion in outstanding loans.