Crypto trading and mining have been banned in China since 2021. Yet a state media is now warning against Bitcoin. What's happening in the Far East?

The recent BTC rally led to warnings from China's state media On the risks of investing in cryptocurrencies. Chinese people have recently been showing a growing interest in Bitcoin and the rest of the crypto market.

China had already banned all crypto-related trading and mining activities in September 2021. Yet many mainland Chinese investors have apparently found ways to circumvent the laws and trade abroad.

A rebound in Bitcoin prices cannot "hide" the underlying risks of the highly volatile cryptocurrency, stated state-run newspaper Jingji Ribao (Economic Daily). Investors should "remain cautious."

Chinese state media have often tried to deter crypto investors. In 2022, the same newspaper warned that the price of Bitcoin could quickly fall back to its "original value" of zero.

In February alone, however, the BTC price rose more than $20,000, a historically unprecedented growth. This price increase has also sparked euphoria among Internet users in mainland China, where there is still an active crypto community.

Bitcoin became one of the most searched terms last week on several Chinese online platforms, including Weibo. The term's popularity even more than quadrupled on the popular all-in-one app WeChat.

Despite the restrictive attitude of the Chinese state, more than 20 percent of the global mining of Bitcoin still take place in China. According to the WSJ Chinese investors are said to have traded more than $90 billion worth of crypto assets on Binance in just one month.

So far, China's crypto ban does not seem to be very effective.