China’s mouthpiece newspaper is giving out NFTs amid unclear regulation

A new NFT gallery owned by the People’s Daily online arm is airdropping this week its first batch of “digital collectibles” minted on Tencent’s blockchain since the gallery’s opening last January.

Fast facts

• Digital collectibles is a phrase now commonly used by Chinese companies to avoid the term “NFT” since Chinese state media began denouncing the market frenzy over NFTs.

• Over 51,000 digital collectibles of the word “tiger” and “love” in traditional Chinese calligraphy went into distribution on Monday in celebration of the Year of the Tiger. 

• The digital collectibles are minted on Tencent’s Zhixin Chain but can only be managed on the People’s Daily’s NFT platform, where users are banned from transferring the asset during the airdropping event ending on Wednesday. 

• Tencent’s Zhixin Chain provides government-related services such as judicial depository and digital licenses, but it does not have its own NFT market.

• Amid Beijing’s cautions over NFT trading, Chinese tech giants pledged to resist speculation on digital collectibles, with Alibaba’s blockchain subsidiary AntChain imposing a 180-day lock before a buyer can resell. 

• China does not yet have regulatory policies on NFTs, but more state-backed entities have started adoption, including Hainan International Art Exchange Center and Blockchain Service Network.