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Weibo, the leading Chinese social media platform with over 249 active daily users has launched an NFT marketplace, TopHolder. This platform, which is China’s equivalent of Twitter, was created to allow users to mint their posts in NFTs and sell them.Â
Of late, NFT development in China has generated some interesting narratives. Considering the close relationship of NFTs and cryptocurrencies on the global level, China’s interest has raised some mixed feelings in the digital assets space.
Since the middle of 2021, Chinese authorities have taken a hard stand in the cryptocurrency industry. Not only were cryptocurrencies banned, all businesses related to crypto, including mining, exchanges, and other services have been prohibited in China. Therefore, the open-handed welcome of the same authorities towards NFTs is coming as a surprise to many.
Nevertheless, from an early stage, the Chinese authorities and all those concerned are making efforts to create the right framework that will suit the country’s policies when it comes to NFTs. Not losing sight of why traditional cryptocurrencies were banned, Chinese authorities are working to ensure that the emerging local NFT industry will be compliant with the government’s supervisory organization.
Weibo’s newly created NFT marketplace is designed to suit the government’s existing conditions for operating in the digital assets industry. With a lot of importance laid on KYC verification, all the users of TopHolder must pass the KYC verification exercise before they can be allowed to mint and sell NFTs on the marketplace.
There are also other internal conditions that users must comply with while participating in the TopHolder marketplace. For instance, there is a strict rule against the plagiarization of NFTs. Any user found to have plagiarized the NFT of other platform users will be subject to some strict penalties. Details of such penalties are yet to be made public.
Flipping of assets is not permitted on Weibo’s TopHolder NFT marketplace. Only free transfers are permitted on the platform, and this must be after a 180-day holding period.
Recall that the Chinese government, through its state-backed media, has frowned at speculation in the NFT market. This idea lies within the backbone of project developers within the industry. They all aim to comply with the conditions laid out by the government and pursue the achievement of a non-speculative marketplace.
This informs the elongated holding periods that have been adopted by both Weibo on its newly created TopHolder marketplace, and Alibaba on its blockchain subsidiary, AntChain, which is also involved in the minting of NFTs. Tencent on the other hand has completely banned any form of secondary transfer of NFTs on its platform.
Weibo’s foray into the industry qualifies it as one of the major players in China’s NFT market. It joins the likes of BSN, Ant Group, Tencent, and NFTCN Marketplace as the pioneers of NFT implementation in China.
The Chinese model of the NFT market is still developing, with a lot of growth potential. The early approach by the regulators in creating a framework that will govern the industry is popularly considered as a welcome development. This will avoid the kind of chaos that was experienced in the cryptocurrency industry for over one decade. With the NFTs marketplace in China, although developing differently from those of other parts of the world, it is expected to arrive with its kind of value.
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