China P2P stablecoin wallets grew 43x despite crypto restrictions: Chainalysis

What happened

China P2P (machines connecting directly to each other, with no server in between) stablecoin (a digital token meant to hold a fixed value, usually one dollar) wallets (the software or device that holds the keys to someone’s crypto) grew 43x despite crypto restrictions: Chainalysis, according to Cointelegraph. Unique wallets sending P2P stablecoin transactions in China grew 43-fold between Q1 2024 and Q2 2026 as crypto activity increasingly shifted toward direct wallet-to-wallet transfers. The number of unique wallets sending peer-to-peer (P2P) stablecoin transactions in China grew 43-fold between the first quarter of 2024 and the second quarter of 2026, according to Chainalysis.

The blockchain analytics company recorded $104.1 billion across 18.1 million transfers involving China’s self-custodied stablecoin holdings during the 2026 reporting period, which ran from July 2025 to June 2026. Stablecoin holdings turned over 33.2 times per year, more than three times the global average of 9.3, a pattern Chainalysis said was consistent with users treating stablecoins as working capital.

Chainalysis’s new report estimated that China’s crypto economy is worth at least $176 billion. Domestic P2P activity accounted for 59.1% of the total, 3.5 times its share in the 2025 reporting period. The growth comes despite China’s longstanding restrictions on crypto trading, which authorities reinforced in February with new rules targeting unauthorized yuan-pegged stablecoins and tokenized (representing an asset as a tradable entry on a blockchain) real-world assets.