Coinbase lifts KYC restrictions for users in Mainland China under Grayscale

July 14, Coinbase made a substantive easing of its identity verification rules for residents of mainland China.

Multiple users and overseas crypto media conducted tests and reported that the platform system has accepted completion of KYC tiered verification using a PRC resident ID card plus a mainland permanent address; the old rule requiring a China passport plus a Hong Kong address has become history.

Wu Blockchain and Coinbase employees confirmed the change both ways. In the first batch of tests, AI matching + compliance pre-review can pass in as fast as 1 minute, and manual batch review does not take more than 1 hour.

As of the morning of July 15, Coinbase has not issued an official announcement; the identity verification page in the official help center still states that “mainland China only supports passports,” and the documentation and real-world execution are misaligned. This appears to be a gray-scale, phased rollout—a testing nature that could be rolled back at any time.

It is worth noting that Coinbase (NASDAQ: COIN) reported 2026 Q1 revenue of $1.34B, down 30.85% year over year, with a net loss of $394 million; EPS is -$1.49, worsening by more than 7 times compared with a profit of $66 million in the same period last year. The 2025 Q4 losses further expanded to $667 million. The stock price has fallen by about 64% from the 52-week high of $444.65 set in July last year. BTIG just cut its target price from $280 to $260.

Asia-Pacific has long been an incremental market Coinbase wanted to tap after listing but couldn’t manage. The dual thresholds of passport + Hong Kong address have kept the vast majority of retail users out. By downgrading the requirement to ID card + mainland address this time, it is clearly aimed at the large existing pool of crypto demand.

However, the baseline of China’s 2021 “924 ban” still holds: virtual currencies are illegal tender; direct convertibility between RMB and crypto on public exchanges remains prohibited; and within China, banks/payment institutions are forbidden from providing clearing channels for virtual currencies. For accounts already registered, if they trigger large cross-border fund flows, they may still face risks such as withdrawal limits, trading limits, or even batch rollbacks of KYC.

Gray-scale policy itself may be recoverable at any time, so users should not misread the ability to register as a policy shift.