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NFT Alibaba Ant Financial Antchain Tencent Tencent Bamboo

Alibaba, Tencent remove NFT reference in digital collectibles platforms

Chen Du

posted on October 25, 2021 1:52 pmEditor : Wang Boyuan

Update: after publishing, Antchain clarified to PingWest that the platform decided to allow digital collectibles to be freely gifted between "authenticated Alipay users" after they have been held by one user for more than 180 days.

In a seemingly coordinated move, both Alibaba and Tencent revamped their respective NFT selling programs last weekend. Both companies now address NFT, the blockchain-based digital art form that gained much fanfare over the last year, as "digital collectibles" (数字藏品), likely to alleviate some regulatory pressure regarding the technology.

Both Antchain Fanspoints (蚂蚁粉丝粒), the blockchain platform by Ant Financial, the fintech giant related to Alibaba, and Bamboo (幻核),the NFT publishing platform by Tencent's Platform and Content Group, made platform-wide changes to remove any direct reference to "NFT" over the weekend, reports Chinese business outlet Jiemian.

The changes by two of the big techs in China indicate that the country is continuing its efforts to rectify the cryptocurrency and blockchain-related industries to crack down on profit-seeking activities such as speculation and hype-making.

It is also worth mentioning that Taobao, another massive service owned by Alibaba, also hosted its own digital art show within its mobile app on Oct. 18 and already refrained from using "NFT" in-app content and marketing material.

Following the popularity of NFT as a blockchain-based art form and its worldwide reception as the new money-making machine, a number of NFT making, publishing, and trading platforms prospered. Ant Financial and Tencent announced their own platforms earlier this year and have published and begun selling a dozen digital art collection series, respectively. 

However, for the past year and on, China's official position has been increasingly against market-disrupting speculation activities using cryptocurrencies and the once-booming blockchain industries that took over much of the monetary and energy resources in some regions of the country. While pushing the adoption of Digital Yuan, the official cryptocurrency of China, the country had already taken a u-turn on bitcoin and other popular cryptocurrencies, cutting off electricity to known crypto mining operations. State media Global Times reported earlier this year that 90% of China's bitcoin mining capacity was estimated to have been shut down.

Although NFT is technologically distinctive from regular cryptocurrencies (in the sense that it is short for non-fungible tokens, while regular cryptocurrencies are fungible tokens since they are de facto digital currencies), the fact that many popular NFTs have seen their prices go up insanely to the point of becoming financial products for speculation, is particularly problematic. In this sense, it is somewhat understandable that China's top 2 big techs would want to avoid irritating the government.

In the meantime, the blockchain communities have already questioned the legitimacy and technicalities of some of these Chinese big tech's past NFT offerings. For instance, experts found that Antchain Fanspoints's offering of digital Dunhuang murals was not based on openly accepted NFT technology since its terms dictated that users who bought such NFTs won't be able to trade them or adapt them for other commercial uses. "Essentially, we bought .jpgs, instead of NFTs," many netizens quipped.

After publishing of this article, Antchain clarified to PingWest that the platform decided to allow digital collectibles to be freely gifted between "authenticated Alipay users" after they have been held by one user for more than 180 days.

Antchain's digial Dunhuang murals, sold via a mini program in digital wallet app Alipay. Image via Tuoluocaijing
Antchain's digial Dunhuang murals, sold via a mini program in digital wallet app Alipay. Image via Tuoluocaijing

Regarding the name change last weekend, Antchain said in a statement to the press that it resolutely resists malicious hype-making and price gouging behaviors, as well as crypto-trading activities disguised as digital collectibles trading.

Antchain said that it stand firmly against illegal trading of digital collectibles in the forms of equity, standardized contracts and others, and we oppose the financial productization of digital collectibles.

"We decided to use a more accurate description for the business, and to define users' rights and responsibilities with greater clarity. We believe the term 'digital collectible' will also be better understood by the public."

Tencent did not respond to press inquiries regarding the changes at Bamboo.

For the moment, big techs and other major platform players of the NFT craze in China are stuck between the promise of the NFT market and the seemingly imminent adversarial actions by the Chinese government.