China’s technology giants promise speculation – free NFTs – TechCrunch
The future of non-fungible tokens is becoming clearer in China as the country’s technology giants come together to formulate standards for the nascent industry.
The China Cultural Industry Association, together with Tencent, Ant Group, Baidu and others, jointly issued a “self-disciplined development proposal” for “the digital collector industry”, a renamed term for NFT in China to remove the economic aspects of the technology.
Although industry associations do not have regulatory authority, they can help develop standards and best practices in an industry. China Cultural Industry Association was founded with the permission of the Prime Minister and counts Alibaba and Tencent among its members, according to information on the website.
China’s NFT enthusiasts have been watching for regulatory directions from the top. After China banned cryptocurrency trading, speculation was that NFTs in their purest form – trading in cryptocurrencies on global, public blockchains, freely and anonymously – would not be allowed in the country.
That seems to be the case. In April, China’s financial associations suggested that NFTs should not be used for securitization or transactions in cryptocurrencies.
China’s NFT industry could be a step closer to regulation with the country’s largest platform operators taking a stand. Digital collection platforms, according to the proposal issued by Tencent, Ant Group and others, should have relevant regulatory permits, ensure the security of underlying blockchain technologies, enforce user real identity checks, step up the protection of intellectual property rights, resolutely ban financial speculation and promote rational consumption among users.
Technology companies in China have tested the water before the NFT regulations came into force. Behemoths from Tencent, Ant Group to Baidu have all launched their digital collector marketplaces built on private consortium chains. Users can only make purchases with the Chinese fiat currency RMB, and secondary trading is generally prohibited to prevent price cuts.
One company decided to take the ambition beyond China to explore the full range of NFTs. In April, Bilibili, China’s best user-generated video streaming site, commissioned a Singapore-based company to launch an Ethereum-based NFT collection inspired by the site’s branding elements.
