Written by: Umbrella\ Prison Big | Deep Tide TechFlow
Searching for "USDT" on Xianyu yields a blank page. But changing the keyword to "sell USD coins" instantly reveals a hidden digital black market.
Sellers use various homophones, coded language, and images to evade platform regulation; "those who understand know" is the common password here. Some hide contact information in the corners of images, while others directly screenshot exchange logos to prove they are "insiders."
Cryptographic assets, which are highly sensitive and strictly regulated in public contexts, have not truly disappeared but have instead been disguised and folded into a more underground platform.
"Buying and selling USDT," "step-by-step guidance to download exchange apps," "overseas ID for exchange KYC," "Binance alpha tutorials"… here, one can almost buy a one-stop service for cryptocurrency trading guidance.
The digital black market extends far beyond crypto-related content: discounted flight tickets, hotel bookings, popular restaurant locations, concert floor access, AI certification for soldiers…
A saying circulates on social media:
"You can almost buy anything on Xianyu."
This is not an exaggeration.
The Secret Crypto Business
In October 2025, the official X account of the Republic of Palau's digital identity rarely issued an announcement in Chinese.
"Recently, it has been discovered that individuals are publicly displaying forged Palauan identity documents on social media to bypass KYC verification processes on various platforms. This behavior constitutes serious identity fraud." RNS.ID officially announced that it would implement secondary reviews for all Palau ID users using Chinese pinyin; users who fail verification will be marked as fraudulent and added to the global fraud database.
Why did this Pacific island nation's government specifically issue an announcement in Chinese? The answer lies in the search results on Xianyu.
By entering keywords like "overseas identity" or "Palau ID," one can discover an underground network for trading fake documents. Prices range from dozens to hundreds of yuan, promising "100% approval from major exchanges."
In addition to Palau, documents from countries like Dominica, Nigeria, and the Philippines are also popular items. The quality of these fake documents is continuously improving, with sellers offering customization services to create fake IDs using buyers' real photos to ensure they pass facial recognition.
Beyond selling fake documents for KYC, the Xianyu crypto black market is filled with more zero-cost virtual services.
On Xianyu, an account named "Shenzhen Little Hero" once sold a 30-minute guidance service for "downloading and installing Binance and OKEx" for 10 yuan. (Note: This has since been taken down.)
"Little Hero" is not an unknown figure; in the crypto world, this is a well-known name, a top KOL.
Not long ago, news of him purchasing a top luxury apartment in Shenzhen, the CITIC Xinyue Bay, while being 60 million yuan in debt, circulated widely in the industry.
Why would a billionaire in the crypto circle personally engage in a "customer service" business on Xianyu for just 10 yuan per order?
The 10 yuan teaching fee is merely bait; the real income comes from referral commissions. Every user who registers through his link can bring him a share of transaction fees in the future. An active user could generate hundreds or even thousands of yuan in revenue each month.
This 10 yuan business is a low-cost fishing rod. The other end of the rod connects to a vast, sustainably monetizable pool of traffic.
If "Little Hero's" business is an overt strategy, then many other sellers are engaging in a more pure form of "borrowing light through the wall" trade based on information asymmetry.
A product priced at 88 yuan for "Binance Alpha introductory teaching" offers one-on-one online classes, promising "hands-on practice, saving time and effort." The so-called "Alpha" typically refers to activities launched by platforms like Binance that allow users to earn potential airdrop rewards by completing tasks.
The ways to participate in these activities have long been open secrets on platforms like X and YouTube, with countless bloggers sharing detailed guides for free. However, for most domestic users, the wall built by language, network environment, and information channels is a real barrier.
One buyer commented, "The seller is very enthusiastic; it's much more convenient than figuring it out myself."
AI "Arsenal"
Digital trading of cryptocurrencies may be considered a small "dark room" within this folded space, but trading related to AI represents a truly vast, universally participatory "digital arsenal."
When names like ChatGPT and Claude exploded globally, an invisible wall also rose. Complex registration processes, network environments, and credit card payment barriers kept the vast majority of curious Chinese users at bay. They can see the dazzling fireworks of the new world but cannot find the entrance.
Xianyu unexpectedly became a grassroots path to bypass the high walls.
Here, the "arms dealers" provide a full range of services from beginner to advanced.
The most basic product is an "account," a pre-registered GPT or Claude account, priced from dozens to hundreds of yuan, with subsequent monthly recharge services available.
What are the most popular overseas AI applications and large models in the market? Just look at Xianyu.
In 2025, when the AI application Manus, which was later acquired by Meta for $2 billion, emerged, obtaining a beta test qualification was extremely difficult. The price of beta test codes on Xianyu skyrocketed from hundreds to thousands, even tens of thousands of yuan overnight, with some listings reaching exorbitant prices of "100,000 yuan," significantly boosting Manus's influence.
Currently, the hottest AI products on Xianyu are Gemini and ChatGPT.
The subscription fee for the premium version is $20 per month, which can dampen the enthusiasm of many ordinary users.
However, Google offers a one-year free benefit for students, and OpenAI has launched a benefit program for U.S. veterans and active-duty military personnel, allowing them to receive a year of ChatGPT Plus for free. This small act of goodwill has been developed into a scaled business by a group of keen sellers on Xianyu.
Searching for "soldier" on Xianyu reveals a peculiar cyber landscape. The product covers feature various cartoon soldiers or tough guy images, and the product names are filled with coded camaraderie: "Soldier helped!" "Soldier one-year plus finished account," with prices ranging from a few to several dozen yuan.
A Xianyu user mentioned on social media: "Xianyu is currently the largest AI training base in the Chinese-speaking world. Without Xianyu, most Chinese people wouldn't be able to use international top AI models at all."
This statement is full of contradictions yet incredibly realistic.
Xianyu, a platform originally intended for trading second-hand goods, has inadvertently taken on the role of "enlightener" and "popularizer" of international top AI models in China.
Buying Everything
Whether it's crypto trading or AI services, this is still just the tip of the iceberg of Xianyu's digital black market.
"Human development of Xianyu is less than one percent," some have commented, calling Xianyu the Chinese version of the dark web.
The "dark" in Xianyu does not merely refer to blackness; it is more about the absurdity, with a large number of side hustles and "underground industries" that are hard to see in daily life taking root on the platform.
Some products are so abstract that they are even bizarre, becoming sources of laughter on social media.
What to do when workers encounter malicious wage arrears?
Someone found low-cost legal aid on Xianyu, only to have the seller send out over eighty elderly women to fight back, crying and causing a scene until the wages were deposited in three days.
Someone wanted to refund a flight ticket and sought help on Xianyu, only to receive a "death certificate."
On Xianyu, we see not only demand and transactions but perhaps the most authentic field survey of the Chinese internet.
In this field, the most vigorous "wild wisdom" grows.
It does not follow the elegant rules of the business world but adheres to the highest principle of "solving problems." When formal channels cannot meet demands or are too costly, grassroots creativity will erupt in a vigorous, even darkly humorous way.
The digital black market of Xianyu presents a real slice of contemporary Chinese society. Here, there is no glamorous brand packaging, but the most genuine slices of humanity: speculation, opportunism, laziness, despair, and the instinct to survive in the gaps of rules.
However, when the paths to solving problems slide into deeper gray areas, the objects of trade reach their endpoint, the person themselves.
If hiring an elderly woman is renting "someone else's performance," then the most dangerous business on Xianyu is renting "your own identity."
"Newcomers for sale, exchange for accounts," "stable recovery of exchange accounts, already passed KYC, long-term cooperation," "long-term collection of newcomers for QR code registration"… these types of announcements blatantly package a person's KYC identity in the digital world for sale. The seller's language is highly tempting, with some packaging this behavior as "landlords of the digital age," misleading users into thinking they are merely activating "idle assets" and easily achieving "lying down to earn."
However, an account rented or sold by a novice could become a tool for telecom fraud or money laundering gangs.
From purchasing a tutorial to buying an account; from hiring someone to solve troubles to renting oneself out to the trouble itself. This bizarre trading chain ultimately forms a terrifying closed loop.
We start by using money to buy convenience, only to end up exchanging ourselves for money.
This bizarre digital soil is both a "grassroots infrastructure" for ordinary people to bypass barriers and obtain resources, as well as a dark forest hiding countless traps. It proves in the most extreme way that any suppressed demand will not disappear; it will only break ground in more primitive and dangerous ways in corners untouched by rules.
Here, convenience and cost are marked with the same price. You think you are just taking a shortcut, but you may find that the end of the shortcut could also be a cliff.
免责声明：本文章仅代表作者个人观点，不代表本平台的立场和观点。本文章仅供信息分享，不构成对任何人的任何投资建议。用户与作者之间的任何争议，与本平台无关。如网页中刊载的文章或图片涉及侵权，请提供相关的权利证明和身份证明发送邮件到support@aicoin.com，本平台相关工作人员将会进行核查。
