Did 2023 start well? China launches NFT marketplace on January 1st

As we approach the year 2022, we wonder what 2023 may bring for the cryptocurrency industry. Well, on the very first day of the new year, China will officially launch its own regulated NFT marketplace.

The venture, which will act as a secondary market for trading NFTs, was established by the state-owned Chinese Technology Exchange, the state-owned Art Exhibitions China and the privately held company Huban Digital Copyrights Ltd.

The trading license of the platform is based on China Digital Exchange, and the subject of the transaction is related digital collections and digital copyrights. What kind of goods are they? Not sure yet.

Yin Tao, President Huban Digital

In addition to being used to sell collectibles, the marketplace, whose name literally translates to China Digital Asset Trading Platform, will also be used to trade digital copyrights and property rights.

On the first of the new year, there will be a celebration in Beijing, the nation’s capital, to celebrate the beginning of business in the marketplace.

According to Yin Tao, the exact trade items and trade regulations are still being studied and debated.

He went on to say that as an example, there are limitations on the time and price of transaction delivery and that the excessive hype present in the secondary market can be prevented by developing standardized trading methods and standards.

Digital collections are a new form of company, and laws, rules and regulatory guidelines will gradually improve, so there are some uncertainties, according to Yu Jianing, an expert on digital assets and metaverse development in China.

He adds that because of this there are certain unknowns surrounding industry oversight and compliance requirements for digital collections.

Platforms have very specific tasks when it comes to the distribution and exchange of digital collections. Compared to copyright and intellectual property rights, the compliance concerns associated with digital collections are far higher, says Yu.

China’s relationship with NFTs

Non-fungible tokens, also known as NFTs, have seen a surge in popularity among Chinese citizens in recent times, and marketing campaigns using these digital assets have become more common in China.

On December 10, a Chinese court in Hangzhou ruled that NFTs are a type of online virtual property eligible for legal protection in the Asian country.

The court equated the purchase and sale of digital items via the Internet with the concept of virtual property and classified digital collectibles as part of that category.

Following the categorization, the court concluded that the rules of the e-commerce jurisdiction would apply to NFTs.

Following the blanket ban on virtual assets, the court’s ruling has been praised for its ability to remove any remaining doubts about the asset class.

This established a standard for how the Chinese legal system will handle NFTs going forward in that regard.

Since last year, cryptocurrency exchanges have been banned in China, despite the fact that cryptocurrency itself is recognized as a kind of virtual property protected by law.