Roger Huang – How Bitcoin Got Stronger After China’s Bans | BTC Prague 2025 Keynote

China is the most capable and willing state to attack permissionless networks — and yet Bitcoin not only survived every ban, it grew stronger. I shared this hero-and-villain story from the BTC Prague stage, and the evidence is impossible to ignore.

The Most Sophisticated Adversary Bitcoin Has Ever Faced

In cybersecurity, there’s a concept called a red team — a sophisticated adversary sufficiently motivated to attack your system. That is China. And Bitcoin is the entity being red-teamed. If you want to understand how resilient Bitcoin truly is, look at how it has performed against the most advanced surveillance state in human history.

We’re talking about approximately 600 million CCTV cameras — roughly one for every two Chinese citizens — with advanced facial recognition tracking everything from jaywalking to online expression. China holds all its citizens’ data domestically, from financial records via WeChat Pay and Alipay to DNA and mobile identity data. And then there’s the Great Firewall, which blocks access to the global internet and has even launched deep attacks on Tor and other circumvention networks. Despite all of this, Chinese VPN usage remains some of the highest in the world.

Every Ban Failed — Here’s Why

China banned Bitcoin from banks — but Bitcoin never needed banks, that was the whole point. It took down crypto influencer accounts — but Bitcoin keeps doing its thing regardless of who tweets about it. It restricted exchanges and banned ICOs — but Bitcoin doesn’t need an exchange to thrive. Then came the 2021 mining ban. I’m happy to report that through multiple sources, physical Bitcoin mining is still happening in China today, including in Xinjiang where many operations were apparently never shut down. Global hash rate has only grown since that ban.

Even law enforcement crackdowns — over 1,200 arrests in 2022 alone for virtual currency trading — couldn’t stop it. The Chinese government has itself acknowledged it cannot stop this behavior. Not everyone can be arrested, and the internet itself cannot be fully shut down, even though China has tried very hard to do both.

Bitcoin and Nostr Are Still Alive Inside China

I categorized thousands of notes written in simplified Mandarin on Nostr — a strong indicator these users live in mainland China. People are talking about everything from metro stations to gig work to their daily lives. At one point, Nostr and Damus were among the most popular apps in Hong Kong and mainland China. There’s even a Mando Pop star on Nostr — think Taylor Swift orange-pilling her fans — actively taking zaps and engaging with the Bitcoin community.

One of the most meaningful stories I’ve encountered is a young woman born and raised in China who came abroad for university. Accumulating Bitcoin made her realize that the digital yuan CBDC was dangerous — and then she went further, concluding that WeChat Pay and Alipay were bad ideas too. That spreading awareness, however slow, is real and meaningful.

Why the Chinese Government Really Did This

All these bans weren’t random. They were part of a coordinated strategy to promote China’s central bank digital currency — the digital yuan — as the dominant payment system. Li He, the former vice premier responsible for the mining ban, explicitly stated that Bitcoin mining was harmful to Chinese society. The goal was to clear the field for a government-controlled monetary network while eliminating competition from permissionless alternatives.

This matters far beyond China. Countries like India and Nigeria are already following the Chinese model, embracing digital rupees and CBDCs. The battle between permissionless money and state-controlled digital payments is happening right now, and its outcome will shape the financial future of billions of people.

What Comes Next

A full unban is unlikely. But further crackdowns are also unlikely. Notably, China’s vice minister of finance has already acknowledged publicly that the cryptocurrency ban was a mistake — because Bitcoin only grew stronger in response. Meanwhile, China’s economy is struggling and its central bank is printing money, which historically