In this article · 9 sections
U商 (U shang) is a dealer who buys and sells USDT for Chinese yuan, 冻卡 (dongka) is a bank account frozen by police or restricted by the bank, and 黑U (hei U) is USDT that came from fraud, gambling or other crime. These and dozens of other words come from the chat groups and peer-to-peer (P2P) ad pages where China's over-the-counter (OTC) crypto market operates. This glossary explains the terms a buyer, analyst or journalist outside mainland China is most likely to meet, grouped by topic.
Pinyin, the standard romanisation of Mandarin, is given in brackets so you can say or search the word. Meanings are plain-English descriptions of how the terms are used, not legal definitions. Where a term comes from a law, notice or court document, we name it, and the documents are listed at the end.
One point applies throughout: in mainland China, exchanging yuan for crypto as a business is illegal financial activity under the notice of the People's Bank of China and seven other agencies, Yinfa [2026] No. 42 (6 February 2026). Many of these words exist because the market operates in that grey zone, and several of them describe crimes. See whether crypto is legal in China.
Trading and dealers
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| U (U) — USDT | Everyday shorthand for USDT, the dollar-pegged stablecoin issued by Tether. "1 U" is one USDT, "出U" means selling it. |
| 泰达币 (taidabi) — Tether | The formal Chinese name for USDT, used in official documents. The 2021 and 2026 notices name it alongside bitcoin and ether. |
| 稳定币 (wendingbi) — stablecoin | A token designed to hold a fixed value against a currency, usually the dollar. The 2026 notice bans unapproved issuance of yuan-pegged stablecoins abroad. |
| 法币 (fabi) — fiat money | Government-issued money such as yuan or dollars, as opposed to crypto. "法币交易" is trading crypto against fiat. |
| U商 (U shang) — U merchant | An OTC dealer who buys and sells USDT for yuan, on exchange P2P boards or privately in chat groups. |
| 币商 (bi shang) — coin merchant | A broader term for any crypto dealer; often used interchangeably with U商. |
| 承兑 / 承兑商 (chengdui / chengdui shang) — acceptance desk | A settlement desk that converts USDT to yuan, or the reverse, for clients, often in volume and for a fee. The word is borrowed from banking, where it means accepting a bill. |
| 场外交易 (changwai jiaoyi) — OTC trading | Trading outside an exchange's order book: P2P ads, chat groups or face-to-face deals. |
| C2C / P2P — peer-to-peer board | The exchange section where users post ads to buy or sell USDT for yuan and pay each other directly. The exchange holds the seller's USDT in escrow. |
| 出U / 收U (chu U / shou U) — sell / buy USDT | 出U is selling USDT for yuan; 收U is buying it. |
| 出金 / 入金 (chujin / rujin) — cash out / cash in | Turning crypto into money in a bank account, or the reverse. For P2P sellers, cashing out is where freeze risk arises. |
| 广告 / 挂单 (guanggao / guadan) — ad, posted order | A dealer's standing offer on a P2P board, with price, limits and accepted payment methods. |
| 限额 (xian'e) — order limits | The minimum and maximum yuan amount a single order on an ad can be. See how to read P2P ads. |
| 完成率 (wancheng lü) — completion rate | The share of accepted orders an advertiser finished rather than cancelled. coinkiki only counts ads from dealers at 95% or more. |
| 成交单数 (chengjiao danshu) — completed orders | How many trades an advertiser has finished, over 30 days or a lifetime depending on the exchange. |
| 付款时限 (fukuan shixian) — payment window | How long the buyer has to pay after opening an order, often 15 minutes. |
| 放币 (fang bi) — release coins | The seller's step of releasing USDT from escrow after confirming the yuan arrived. |
| 申诉 (shensu) — appeal, complaint | Raising a dispute with the exchange over an order. The same word is used for complaints to a bank about an account restriction. |
| 认证商家 (renzheng shangjia) — verified merchant | A dealer the platform has vetted and badged, usually after a deposit. It is a platform label, not a licence. |
| 保证金 (baozhengjin) — security deposit | Money a merchant locks with the platform or an escrow group as a guarantee. |
| 担保 (danbao) — escrow guarantee | A middleman, often a Telegram group, who holds funds during a private OTC deal. |
| 搬砖 (banzhuan) — "moving bricks", arbitrage | Buying where USDT is cheap and selling where it is dear, across platforms or markets. |
| 币圈 (biquan) — "the coin circle" | The crypto scene in general: traders, projects, chat groups and influencers. |
Payments and accounts
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| 支付宝 (Zhifubao) — Alipay | Ant Group's mobile payment and wallet app, one of the two dominant payment apps in China. |
| 微信支付 (Weixin Zhifu) — WeChat Pay | Tencent's payment service inside the WeChat messaging app. |
| 银行卡 (yinhangka) — bank card | A debit card tied to a personal bank account; "paying by bank card" in an ad means a bank transfer to the seller's account. |
| 对公账户 (duigong zhanghu) — corporate account | A company's bank account, as opposed to a personal one. A wire to a supplier normally goes here. |
| 一类卡 / 二类卡 (yi lei ka / er lei ka) — Class I / Class II account | Tiers of Chinese personal bank accounts. Class I is a full account; Class II accounts carry lower limits. |
| 非柜面业务 (fei guimian yewu) — non-counter services | Transactions made online, by app or at an ATM rather than at a branch counter. Restrictions often target these. |
| 实名认证 (shiming renzheng) — real-name verification | Identity checks required to open phone, bank and payment accounts. |
| 实名一致 (shiming yizhi) — names must match | A common ad condition: the paying account must be in the same name as the buyer's verified exchange account. |
| 第三方付款 (disanfang fukuan) — third-party payment | Someone other than the order's buyer paying the seller. On P2P boards it is a classic sign of a scam victim's money. "第三方支付" can also mean non-bank payment companies. |
| 收款码 (shoukuan ma) — payment QR code | A QR code that lets anyone pay the holder through Alipay or WeChat Pay. |
| 转账备注 (zhuanzhang beizhu) — transfer note | The free-text memo on a bank transfer. P2P ads often forbid mentioning crypto in it. |
Freezes and risk control
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| 冻卡 (dongka) — frozen bank card | A bank account frozen by police or prosecutors, or restricted by the bank itself. See frozen bank cards, explained. |
| 司法冻结 (sifa dongjie) — judicial freeze | A freeze ordered by police, prosecutors or a court in a case. For deposits it lasts six months by default. |
| 续冻 (xudong) — renewed freeze | Extending a police freeze before it expires, for up to another six months each time; if it is not renewed, it lapses. |
| 轮候冻结 (lunhou dongjie) — queued freeze | A second authority's freeze that waits in line and takes effect when the first one ends; the same money cannot be frozen twice at once. |
| 风控 (fengkong) — risk control | A bank's or platform's automated monitoring and the restrictions it triggers. |
| 只收不付 (zhi shou bu fu) — receive-only | An account restriction that lets money in but blocks payments out. |
| 不收不付 (bu shou bu fu) — full block | An account that can neither receive nor send money. |
| 止付 (zhifu) — stop payment | An urgent halt on payments from an account, part of the system the anti-fraud law sets up for "emergency stop payment, rapid freezing" of fraud money. |
| 解冻 (jiedong) — unfreeze | Lifting a freeze or restriction. |
| 异地冻结 (yidi dongjie) — out-of-town freeze | A freeze by police in another city or province, usually where the fraud victim reported the crime. |
| 协查 (xiecha) — assist an investigation | A request, often from out-of-town police, that the account holder explain transactions. |
| 涉诈 (she zha) — fraud-linked | Describes money or an account connected to telecom or online fraud. |
| 电诈 (dianzha) — telecom fraud | Short for telecom and online fraud, the crime behind most freezes. |
| 杀猪盘 (shazhupan) — "pig-butchering" scam | A long-con investment or romance scam in which the victim is groomed before being "slaughtered". The name appears in Chinese prosecutors' case notes. |
| 黑灰产 (heihui chan) — black and grey industries | The ecosystem of services that support fraud and gambling: account renting, money moving, fake registrations. Chinese courts use the term in judgments and case notes. |
Crimes, cards and campaigns
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| 两卡 (liang ka) — "two cards" | Phone cards and bank cards, the target of China's crackdown on accounts sold or rented to criminals. |
| 断卡行动 (duanka xingdong) — "card-breaking" campaign | The nationwide crackdown on the "two cards" launched on 10 October 2020. People found renting or selling accounts can lose non-counter services for five years. |
| 卡农 (ka nong) — "card farmer" | A person who rents or sells their own bank cards to criminals, usually for a small fee. A 2025 Supreme People's Court typical case uses the term. |
| 卡头 (ka tou) — card boss | Someone who recruits card farmers and supplies their accounts to fraud or laundering groups in bulk; officials have warned that students are drawn into this role. |
| 实名不实人 (shiming bu shiren) — "real name, not the real person" | An account registered in one person's name but used by someone else, a problem police officials have highlighted. |
| 工具人 (gongju ren) — "tool person" | Someone used by criminals as an instrument, for example by lending a bank card, often without understanding the risk. |
| 跑分 (paofen) — "running points" | Renting out personal accounts or QR codes to receive and pass on other people's money for a commission; a channel for fraud and gambling funds. In a 2023 prosecutors' case, one platform recruited more than 100,000 people and 370,000 accounts. |
| 洗钱 (xiqian) — money laundering | Disguising the origin of criminal money. Crypto purchases are a common step in Chinese laundering cases. |
| 帮信罪 (bangxin zui) — assisting network crime | The crime of knowingly assisting information network criminal activities, Article 287-2 of the Criminal Law; it covers providing payment settlement. |
| 掩隐罪 (yanyin zui) — concealing criminal proceeds | Short for the crime of concealing or disguising criminal proceeds, which can apply to people who move fraud money. |
| 非法经营罪 (feifa jingying zui) — illegal business operation | The crime used against unlicensed foreign exchange dealing, including currency swaps routed through USDT. |
| 非法金融活动 (feifa jinrong huodong) — illegal financial activity | The category the 2021 and 2026 notices put crypto business in, including exchanging yuan for crypto. |
| 公序良俗 (gongxu liangsu) — public order and good morals | A civil-law principle. The notices say crypto investments that violate it are void, and the investor bears the loss. |
| 黑钱 / 赃款 (heiqian / zangkuan) — dirty money | Proceeds of fraud, gambling or other crime. |
Chains and wallets
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| 黑U (hei U) — "black U", tainted USDT | USDT that came from fraud, gambling or other crime. Receiving it can lead to a frozen address or a police inquiry. |
| 白U / 干净U (bai U / ganjing U) — "clean U" | USDT presented as having a legitimate history. A buyer cannot verify a seller's claim that coins are clean. |
| 链 (lian) — chain | The blockchain a transfer uses. The same USDT exists on several chains, and sending on the wrong one can lose funds. |
| 波场 / TRC20 (Bochang) — Tron network | The Tron blockchain, where much China-related USDT moves because transfers are cheap. TRC20 is its token standard. |
| ERC20 — Ethereum token standard | USDT on Ethereum; usually costlier to send than on Tron. |
| 地址 (dizhi) — address | A wallet's public receiving string. |
| 冷钱包 / 热钱包 (leng qianbao / re qianbao) — cold / hot wallet | Offline versus internet-connected wallets. |
| 能量 (nengliang) — Tron energy | A Tron resource that pays for transactions; dealers rent it out to cut fees. |
| 手续费 / 矿工费 (shouxufei / kuanggongfei) — fee, network fee | The cost of a transfer; 矿工费 means "miner fee". |
| 授权 (shouquan) — token approval | A permission letting a smart contract move your tokens; a common scam tool when users sign approvals they do not understand. |
| 冻结地址 (dongjie dizhi) — frozen address | An address whose USDT the issuer has blocked from moving. |
| 哈希 (haxi) — transaction hash | The ID of a blockchain transfer, used as proof of payment. |
| 挖矿 (wakuang) — mining | Producing new coins by running computers that secure a blockchain. A 2021 notice launched a crackdown on mining in China, and the 2026 notice orders remaining projects closed and bans new ones. |
| RWA — real-world asset tokenization | Turning ownership or income rights in an asset into tokens. The 2026 notice bans it inside China except for approved business on designated infrastructure. |
Prices, rates and regulators
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| U价 (U jia) — USDT price | The yuan price of one USDT on the OTC market. See today's USDT/CNY rate. |
| 溢价 / 折价 (yijia / zhejia) — premium / discount | How far the OTC USDT price sits above or below the official dollar rate. See the China USDT premium and why it moves. |
| 汇率 (huilü) — exchange rate | Any currency rate; context tells you which one. |
| 中间价 (zhongjianjia) — central parity rate | The official daily yuan reference rate, published each business day by the China Foreign Exchange Trade System (CFETS) on behalf of the People's Bank of China; onshore spot trading must stay within 2% of it. |
| 浮动幅度 (fudong fudu) — trading band | How far the onshore spot rate may move from the central parity; 2% either side against the dollar since March 2014. |
| 在岸人民币 CNY (zai'an) — onshore yuan | Yuan traded inside mainland China under capital controls. |
| 离岸人民币 CNH (li'an) — offshore yuan | Yuan traded outside the mainland, mainly in Hong Kong; its rate can differ from CNY. |
| 外管局 (Waiguanju) — SAFE | The State Administration of Foreign Exchange, which runs China's foreign exchange controls. |
| 便利化额度 (bianlihua edu) — USD 50,000 annual quota | Each individual's yearly allowance, equivalent to USD 50,000, for buying and for selling foreign currency at banks with just an ID. |
| 结汇 / 购汇 (jiehui / gouhui) — sell FX / buy FX | Converting foreign currency into yuan at a bank, or yuan into foreign currency. |
| 牌价 (paijia) — bank board rate | The rate a bank posts for customers, which includes the bank's spread. |
| 点差 (diancha) — spread | The gap between buy and sell prices. |
| 42号文 / 237号文 (sishi'er hao wen / erbaisanshiqi hao wen) — "Document 42" / "Document 237" | Everyday names for the 2026 and 2021 crypto notices, Yinfa [2026] No. 42 and Yinfa [2021] No. 237. |
| 金管局 (Jinguanju) — HKMA | The Hong Kong Monetary Authority, which licenses stablecoin issuers under Hong Kong's Stablecoins Ordinance. |
How the words fit together
A typical story told in these terms runs like this. A 电诈 gang persuades a victim to pay. The money lands on a card rented from a 卡农 through a 卡头, or is paid straight to a U商 who thinks it is an ordinary 收U order. The U商 releases the coins (放币), and the gang moves the resulting 黑U on the 波场 chain. When the victim reports the crime, police trace the money and impose an 异地冻结 on the U商's account; the bank may add its own 只收不付 restriction. If the U商 handled CNY 200,000 or more for the gang and prosecutors can show the U商 knew, which they can infer from clearly abnormal prices or methods, the charge may be 帮信罪 or 掩隐罪. Each step is explained in frozen bank cards in China's OTC market, and the method behind coinkiki's own prices is on the data and methodology page.
Frequently asked questions
What does U商 mean, and is a U merchant a licensed dealer?
U商 (U shang) is a person or small firm that buys and sells USDT for yuan as a business, on exchange P2P boards or in private chat groups. It is not a licence or a job title. In mainland China, exchanging yuan for crypto as a business is illegal financial activity under Yinfa [2026] No. 42, so there is no Chinese licence a U merchant could hold. Badges such as "verified merchant" on an exchange describe the platform's own checks, not government approval.
Is a frozen card always a police matter?
No. 冻卡 is used loosely for two different things. A judicial freeze (司法冻结) is ordered by police, prosecutors or a court in a case, lasts six months by default for deposits and can be renewed. A risk-control restriction (风控) is imposed by the bank or payment app itself under the anti-fraud law, often as 只收不付 (receive-only) or a stop on non-counter services, and is usually lifted by explaining the transactions to the bank. Frozen bank cards, explained covers how to tell them apart.
Can I check whether USDT is "clean" before I accept it?
Not with certainty. A seller who says the coins are 干净U ("clean U") is making a claim you cannot verify. Blockchain analytics firms score addresses by their links to known scams, and some block explorers flag addresses that Tether has frozen, but money can pass through several clean-looking hops before it reaches you. That is why 黑U causes trouble downstream: the freeze can come weeks after the payment, at an address or bank account you have already dealt with.
Why does a supplier talk about 承兑 when I pay in USDT?
承兑 (chengdui) here means the desk or dealer that turns the USDT you send into yuan for the supplier. Your supplier may never sell the coins on a P2P board themselves; they hand them to a desk that pays yuan into their bank account and keeps a margin. For you as the buyer, it means your payment passes through a third party you have no contract with, and the price your supplier quotes already includes that desk's cut. How importers pay in USDT walks through each step.
Does the USD 50,000 quota limit what I can pay a Chinese supplier?
No. The 便利化额度 is an annual allowance for individuals buying or selling foreign currency at Chinese banks with only an ID. Payments for goods between a foreign buyer and a Chinese company go through the company's bank as trade settlement, with contracts and invoices, and are not counted against any person's quota. The quota matters to this market for another reason: it caps how many dollars an individual can buy through a bank, and demand above that line is one of the forces behind the China USDT premium.
Sources
- PBoC and seven agencies, Yinfa [2026] No. 42, 6 February 2026: pbc.gov.cn
- PBoC and nine other bodies, Yinfa [2021] No. 237, published 24 September 2021: pbc.gov.cn
- Xinhua via People's Political Consultative Daily, "card-breaking" campaign deployed, 10 October 2020: rmzxw.com.cn
- Supreme People's Court, press conference on Fa Shi [2019] No. 15, with Criminal Law Art. 287-2 text: court.gov.cn
- SPC, typical cases on aiding-information-network crimes, 28 July 2025: court.gov.cn
- SPC, SPP and MPS officials answer questions on the 2025 opinion, 28 July 2025: court.gov.cn
- SPP and SAFE, typical cases on foreign exchange crimes, 11 December 2023 (PDF): safe.gov.cn
- Ministry of Public Security, Procedural Provisions for Public Security Organs Handling Criminal Cases, Articles 240, 242 and 243 (PDF copy): nia.gov.cn
- Anti-Telecom and Online Fraud Law, Article 20, full text as reprinted by The Paper: thepaper.cn
- CFETS, CNY central parity rate: chinamoney.com.cn
- People's Daily, trading band widened to 2%, 16 March 2014: people.com.cn
- SAFE, Implementing Rules of the Measures for the Administration of Individual Foreign Exchange, 2007, Article 2 (USD 50,000 annual total per person): safe.gov.cn
- SAFE, reply to NPC deputies' suggestion No. 5467 (2024), confirming the USD 50,000 annual facilitation quota: safe.gov.cn
- HKMA, Register of licensees under the Stablecoins Ordinance: hkma.gov.hk