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The JD.com NFTs will be available to persons who sign up for the conference with the possibility of earning another for each invited attendee.
Chinese e-commerce company JD.com plans to launch seven free limited edition NFTs developed on its own NFT chain, according to Coindesk. The online retail giant will offer the non-fungible tokens to people who sign up for its annually-held Discovery conference this year.
JD.com specifies that attendees who sign up between October 19th and November 22nd will be beneficiaries of one NFT. In addition, attendees can also earn an additional NFT for every individual they invite to attend the conference.
The seven NFTs will have JD.com’s mascot, with each representing one of the company’s key sectors, including retail, tech, logistics, health, finance, and smart cities. JD.com says it will not release any more NFTs after the November 22nd deadline. However, users will still be able to transfer them to others. The e-commerce platform’s NFT release comes after rival company Alibaba (HKG:9988) and multi-tech holding company Tencent (HKG:0700) launched their own NFT initiatives in August.
JD.com’s NFTs are minted and released on JD blockchain, which is the company’s native blockchain. In addition, the e-commerce company also developed “an NFT technical service platform” where users can circulate, trace, verify and store NFT collections. JD says it plans to use its new NFT platform on a range of objectives. They include copyright safety, public welfare, artwork assortment, and e-commerce as well. The company’s technological development arm, formerly JD Digits, develops works on blockchain, fintech, AI, healthtech, and cloud providers.
JD.com Launch NFTs Follows the Heels of Alibaba and Tencent
In August, Alibaba, another e-commerce heavyweight in China, opened a new online market for blockchain-enabled copyright sales. On the platform, numerous artists can sell the copyrights to their digital assets over a blockchain-backed by the Sichuan provincial government. The service, dubbed “Blockchain Digital Copyright and Asset Trade,” launched on Alibaba Auction, an online auctioning platform. In addition, the New Copyright Blockchain (NCB), a platform run by the Sichuan Blockchain Association Copyright Committee, issues the NFTs. Alibaba’s affiliate Alipay, one of the country’s major payment apps, sold 32,000 NFT artwork pieces within a day in June. In addition, Taobao, another Alibaba-owned online shopping platform, also sold NFTs at its annual shopping festival around the same period.
Tencent has also jumped aboard the NFT bandwagon in August as well. The multimedia conglomerate launched an NFT trading platform called Huanhe, built on the company’s native Zhixin chain. The Huanhe app uses Tencent’s android application platform and featured 300 audio NFTs in its debut sales.
Annabelle Huang, a partner at crypto financial services company Amber Group, predicted that NFTs would thrive in China. Huang believes this is so, especially since crypto mining was banned in the province.
“Since the ban and the great migration [of crypto miners from China], people are looking to the next thing. NFT itself is not an [initial coin offering], it’s not crypto pump-and-dump, so to speak, so I think the government, the regulator’s attitude, is friendlier,” said she.