China: What to know about state-backed BSN’s efforts to create ‘Chinese NFT’ industry

The NFT craze has come to China, but one can hardly see any trace of crypto in it.

Over the last few months, Chinese social media and gaming giant Tencent has built an NFT purchase and collection app. E-commerce platform Alibaba sold 50 NFT mooncakes in a stunt to promote a metaverse product. Half a dozen startups are competing to be the winner of the localized non-fungible token trading market in China.

In China, however, NFTs aren’t about making quick cash. Instead, NFT players in China are trying to steer clear of cryptocurrencies, even though NFTs are, by their very nature, deeply intertwined with crypto.

Jumping onto the bandwagon

China to create own NFT industry based on state-backed blockchain infrastructure, main developer says https://t.co/PESTKHUXOe pic.twitter.com/ersT32k9hd

— Zyite.news (@ZyiteGadgets) January 13, 2022

China’s state-backed Blockchain Services Network (BSN) is currently trending, not just in China but across the globe. As per South China Morning Post, it plans to roll out infrastructure at the end of this month to support the deployment of NFTs. It will be a major step towards creating a “Chinese NFT industry that is not linked to cryptocurrencies,: the report added.

He Yifan, Chief executive at Red Date Technology opined,

“Non-fungible tokens have no legal issue in China as long as they have nothing to do with cryptocurrencies. NFTs in China will see the annual output in the billions in the future.”

The BSN-Distributed Digital Certificate (BSN-DDC) provides application programming interfaces for businesses or individuals. This will enable them to build their own user portals or apps to manage NFTs. However, only the Chinese yuan will be allowed for purchases and service fees.

This isn’t its first foray into the NFT sphere either. Last year, in October, Red Date Technology, the firm behind the Blockchain Services Network, released ‘Open permissioned’ chains on the BSN. The NFT project’s underlying platform has already “localised” more than 20 public chains since its 2018 debut.

Without you, I’ll be fine?

That’s exactly the case with NFTs here in China. It managed to thrive in China despite stringent crypto-regulations. Having said that, Chinese regulators did “interviewed” some Internet companies regarding their involvement with NFTs.

These digital collectibles could find themselves in the crosshairs with regulators, therefore suffering the same fate as other digital assets.