China USDT premium

The China USDT premium is how much more, or less, one USDT costs in yuan on China's P2P boards than one US dollar at the USD/CNY reference rate. A positive figure means USDT is dearer than the dollar; a negative one is a discount. It is worked out from the public ads on Binance, OKX and HTX, updated every 3 minutes and kept as a daily series.

How is the China USDT premium calculated?

Premium = (lowest medium-size buy price − USD/CNY) ÷ USD/CNY

The medium-size buy price is what a buyer pays per USDT for an order of CNY 50,000. For each exchange it is the middle price of the five best ads that can take the whole order, from dealers with a completion rate of at least 95% and at least 50 orders. The lowest of the three is used, and the page names the exchange. One fixed size keeps the figure comparable over time. The page also shows the sell-side premium, based on the highest medium-size sell price.

Illustrative numbers, not current data: a buy price of 6.64 against a reference of 6.72 gives (6.64 − 6.72) ÷ 6.72, about −1.19%; a buy price of 6.85 gives about +1.93%.

Why ExchangeRate-API's rate and not the CFETS central parity?

The official central parity (中间价, zhongjianjia) is set by the China Foreign Exchange Trade System (CFETS) once each business day. It is a fixing, not a traded rate, and nothing new appears on days the onshore market is closed, while P2P ads change around the clock.

coinkiki uses the daily USD/CNY rate from ExchangeRate-API's free open-access service instead: a market reference rate that refreshes once a day, from the same source as the offshore USD/CNH rate shown beside it. It is usually close to the parity but not identical. For the official figure, use CFETS's central parity page.

What does a positive or negative premium usually reflect?

• A premium usually reflects dollar demand the banks do not meet. Individuals in China can buy only USD 50,000 of foreign currency a year at a bank without extra documents, and some demand beyond that, or from people worried about a weaker yuan, reaches the P2P boards.
• A discount usually means more people want to sell USDT for yuan than to buy it: exporters paid in USDT who need yuan, wariness of tainted coins (黑U, "black U"), or tighter enforcement.
• Part of the gap is the price of risk: dealers charge for frozen bank accounts and legal exposure.

This describes the number, not a signal to act on: exchanging yuan for crypto is illegal financial activity in mainland China. The causes are covered in why USDT trades at a discount or premium.

How to read the chart and the table

The large figure is the premium now; beside it are the 7-day and 30-day averages of the daily premium, with the number of days that had data. The chart shows one point per Beijing-time day once three days of data exist, and the last 24 hours until then. The table lists the last 30 days: the lowest of the three exchanges' average medium-size buy prices, the day's average USD/CNY reference (or the latest earlier one if there was no new rate) and the premium. Daily figures use averages, so they will not match the live figure. Moves of a few tenths of a percent are routine; a shift lasting weeks says more.

What are the limits of the premium?

• It is built from advertised prices, not completed trades, and leaves out all fees.
• It covers one order size and all payment methods together; bank transfer, Alipay and WeChat Pay ads can be priced differently.
• If one exchange was not updating, the daily figure rests on the other two; a day with no prices has no figure rather than an estimate.

How to cite the China USDT premium

The series is free to reuse under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence (CC BY 4.0). The page gives a citation in this form: coinkiki, "China USDT premium (USDT/CNY OTC vs USD/CNY)", coinkiki.com/en/china-usdt-premium, accessed [date]. Give the date, say whether it is the live or daily value, and note that it compares advertised P2P prices with a market reference rate. The daily series is on the data page; the method is in how coinkiki calculates the USDT/CNY rate.

Frequently asked questions

Does a negative premium mean USDT has lost its dollar peg? No. It means USDT is cheaper in yuan on China's P2P boards than the dollar at the reference rate, a matter of local supply and demand rather than USDT's global price.

Why does the premium move at weekends when the reference does not? The ads keep changing around the clock, so weekend moves come from the P2P side.

Why does today's row in the table differ from the live premium? The table uses the day's averages; the live figure uses only the latest prices and rate.