How China’s crackdown helped Binance become the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange

While the Chinese government is ratcheting up its adoption of blockchain, the underlying technology behind cryptocurrencies, Beijing has made clear it does not want people in the country to get involved with cryptocurrency trades amid concerns of financial chaos.

Zhao Changpeng, 41, built the world’s biggest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume in about 165 days by sticking to a simple strategy: expand anywhere, but China.

The meteoric rise of Binance, which was founded in Hong Kong in July last year, was helped in part by China’s decision to crack down on domestic cryptocurrency trading, Zhao said in an interview on the sidelines of a conference in Singapore last month.