Investors of the parallel market represented by stock investors and futures practitioners, WeChat businesspersons, online lenders, as well as Chinese Dama are all flooding into the crypto world with frenzied enthusiasms, as it happens in China.

Regulators have taken a proactive role in shaping the rise of bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in the country, while this digital gold rush still grows despite stifling crackdowns and great price fluctuations.

The country’s clampdowns come as President Xi Jinping targets financial risks in the economy following a decade of booms and busts in everything from stocks to real estate, and now, maybe bitcoin.

According to International Finance News, which is owned by People’s Daily, the official communist party newspaper, Chinese Dama often presented at domestic blockchain conferences, busy exchanging business card and adding WeChat friends.

An organizer of a conference told reporter that you’d better not underestimate these middle-aged women. They are in strong social networks such as large WeChat groups, which is exactly what token issuers are looking to.

These middle-aged aunties, who are usually homemakers with considerable disposable time and money, find WeChat business like cosmetics sales less and less profitable and thus turn their eye to cryptocurrencies. They are pioneers or sometimes followers of investment trends, famous for rushing to purchase gold as an investment in 2013 when gold prices plunged and then they hype the real estate market, now they are focusing their ambition on bitcoin and its peers.

The stories of self-made billionaires in the crypto world lured these middle-aged investors in. They give full play to their advantages on WeChat marketing, recommending tokens to their friends and clients in those social media chat groups which they have operated for long time, even though they know little about the project they invested.

Apart from these aunties, investors of the parallel market such as futures practitioners would also like to have a go at this sector.

“It (crypto market) is fairly like the futures market twenty years ago, we could be the market maker and operate it from private fundraising to listing on exchanges.” a future practitioner surnamed Zhang said. “The average ROI of issuing a token was lucrative with dozens or even hundreds of times last year, while currently four folds would be great. But we could still find opportunities in this market.”

Online lenders also want to have a share in this market, but they may have no obvious advantages in this area.

With more people get on the crypto trend, regulations are urgently needed rather than a blanket ban. It maybe time for China to lay the regulatory groundwork for its rise as a future digital currency trendsetter.