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Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba is sparing no efforts in riding the non-fungible token (NFT) wave, with its online retailer Tmall selling out a new collection of NFTs featuring mooncakes — a signature snack made to celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival that falls on Sept. 21 this year.
Fast facts
- Tmall has issued “mooncake NFTs” built with Ant Chain — the blockchain arm of Alibaba affiliate Ant Group — and sold out all 50 copies through a lucky draw over the past weekend. Winners in the draw could buy a copy of the NFT at 1 yuan (US$0.15), according to the lucky draw page.
- Buyers not only got the virtual NFT but a box of actual mooncake. They will be able to view the NFTs on Alipay’s mini-program Fensili.
- During the Mid-Autumn Festival, a traditional festival widely celebrated in some regions in East Asia and Southeast Asia to mark the fall harvest, snacking on mooncakes is part of the tradition in Chinese culture while appreciating and watching the moon.
- The latest sales followed Alipay’s successful drops of NFTs over the past few months featuring art adapted from images of flying apsaras and sacred deer from the Caves of the Thousand Buddhas in the Chinese city of Dunhuang, as well as Chinese animated film “White Snake 2: The Tribulation of the Green Snake.”
- Chinese internet giant Tencent has also made a foray into the world of NFTs, launching an NFT trading platform named Huanhe. Last month, its music streaming arm, QQ Music, sold out the service’s first NFT featuring popular Mando-pop singer Tiger Hu.