They don't have to ban crypto ever. If you look at their actions, they are trying to prevent people from accessing exchanges, preventing people from conducting crypto versus fiat trades, and the list goes on.

In other words, they legally want to make it impossible for the mass to either buy or sell crypto, and it seems to be working already. Only a small percentage will ignore the legal framework and still buy and sell crypto.

Will they ever lift these measures? Or soften them up? I don't know and it actually doesn't really matter. Bitcoin will grow regardless of China being on board or not. Bitcoin is too scarce to suffer from country exclusion.

At some point owning even one tenth of a whole coin will be a tremendous achievement. High demand from buyers, but low urge to sell for those who already have Bitcoin.