China Central Television (CCTV), the country’s government mouthpiece, has been airing a serial investigatory news report revealing the unabated cryptocurrency market in the country on its Economic News program. The latest report aired on Tuesday mainly revealed the chaos of cryptocurrency exchanges, and indicated the country’s regulatory platform is closely watching all these.

The previous report aired on Monday has lashed out at the rampant token sales and unstoppable investors in the country despite the ban issued by the country’s central bank last September.

Also, the ban had not deterred local cryptocurrency exchanges. They simply moved their servers or registration place overseas out of the country in a bid to bypass regulations, and continued to offer service to customers located in the mainland.

It is reported that over 20 domestic exchanges have joined the Exodus after the ban, and some choose to invest in newly-established offshore exchanges.

These “relocated” crypto exchanges have circumvented the regulation which bans fiat-to-cryptocurrency trading pairs and upgraded their services for Chinese investors by providing over-the-counter (OTC) and peer-to-peer (P2P) platforms where crypto transactions can still work via payment of Alipay, WeChat pay and bank transfer.

“We have monitored 56 crypto trading platforms offering OTC transaction with RMB-to-cryptocurrency trading pairs, of which roughly 90 per cent are newly-established exchanges after the ‘September ban’.”According to Mao Hongliang, director of the Blockchain Research Office of the National Internet Financial Security Expert Committee.

A government-led regulatory platform (The National Internet Financial Risk Analysis Technology Platform) is watching the crypto-related transactions with information of trader’s account ID, trading price and payment method included. It shows that 56 crypto exchanges and 72 cryptocurrencies are closely watched. The platform also monitors OTC transaction, scam coins, bitcoin trading and ICO activity.

BTC, ETH BCH, LTC, ETC, USDT, Wanke coin, CK.USD, CNET, Dodge and EOS are the most active coins, and Alipay be the most popular payment in the country, according to the platform above.

More crypto exchanges are set up because it is really a lucrative business. Transaction fees are not the only revenue stream for exchanges. They can also pocket millions by charging for listing projects and issuing their own tokens.

“Data shows that the top five exchanges (by transaction volume) are raking in $2 million-$8 million in transaction fees daily. And listing projects need to pay exchanges 20-30 per cent of the raised fund, or even higher.”

Binance, Huobi and OKEx, once the big three crypto exchanges in China, have all launched their platform tokens – BNB, HT, OKB respectively. From May 1^st to May 15^th, the average 24-hour transaction volumes are $70 million for BNB, $80 million for HT, $250 million for OKB.

The report went on to blast the rollback incident of OKEx occurred on March 30, saying the rollback is a kind of market manipulation which indicates the mess of the market and lack of regulation.

It marks the latest effort by Chinese state media to educate the public about the cryptocurrency market and urge the rollout of more regulations on cryptocurrency exchanges to curb the chaos. And for those crypto activists, including crypto exchanges, traders and token issuers, it might be a warning.