In a joint effort between the state-owned Chinese Technology Exchange, the state-owned Art Exhibitions China and the company Huban Digital Copyrights Ltd, China’s first nationwide NFT market is scheduled to return on-line this week.
It’s designed as a secondary marketplace for buying and selling digital collectibles, together with copyrights for digital belongings. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it’s constructed on China’s nationwide Wenbao, or “cultural safety” blockchain, which helps confirm the authenticity of artifacts and business items. Currently, solely the NFT platform’s touchdown web page is accessible.
1400 blockchain corporations in China
On Dec. 29, the state-owned China Academy for Information and Communications Technology, or CAICT, disclosed in its nationwide white paper that over 1,400 blockchain corporations are working within the nation regardless of strict laws. Together, Chinese and U.S. blockchain corporations account for 52% of such entities globally. In one instance of distributed ledger functions in public service, CAICT researchers wrote:
“[In the] Zhejiang Provincial blockchain digital bill platform, [authorities] used blockchain’s a number of entry level and decentralized course of capabilities, together with technological highlights equivalent to good contracts, to enhance the belief verification throughout numerous departments. This led to the digital circulation of digital invoices; their issuance, receipt, inspection, reimbursement, and improved the knowledge administration degree and repair capabilities of digital invoices in monetary departments.”
Similarly, native information outlet Shanghai Securities News reported that the digital yuan central financial institution digital forex, or e-CNY CBDC, surpassed 104.8 billion Chinese yuan ($15.21 billion) in utilization within the province of Zhejiang since its inception in April. Provincial residents have opened 24.14 million e-CNY wallets, and authorities claimed to have distributed 3.5 billion yuan ($510 million) in tax refunds by way of the e-CNY to residents as an experiment. Despite the outcomes, consultants equivalent to former Chinese central banker Xie Peng stated that “utilization has been low” for the CBDC.
Kunming’s blockchain KPIs
On Dec. 30, the City of Kunming revealed its three-year plan for municipal digital economic system improvement. The report set a 25% annual progress goal for town’s digital economic system to surpass 500 billion yuan ($72.58 billion) in two years. In addition, local-level communist occasion officers should meet collective key efficiency indicators of incubating at the least 20 blockchain-specific functions and inspiring the event of at the least 10 “strongly aggressive” and technologically superior blockchain corporations by the tip of 2024. “Please implement [them] absolutely and fully,” the doc states.
Moutai’s metaverse hits 1 million customers
The Moutai metaverse expertise. Source: 68h5.com
On Jan. 1, fashionable Chinese liquor distiller Moutai and web expertise agency WangYi launched their joint metaverse Xunfeng World on the Apple App Store. Developers designed the expertise primarily based on the Moutai distilleries within the Guizhou province. Players can work together with each other and distillers to be taught the standard Moutai-making expertise.
Just two days later, its registered customers surpassed 1 million, with the app rating No. 1 within the e-commerce class in China. However, the app solely had a ranking of two.4/5 on the time of writing, with customers complaining about in-game options, “excruciating” wait occasions for Know Your Customer verification, login difficulties and poor customer support. One person wrote:
“There isn’t any buyer hotline, there is no such thing as a customer support, and I don’t even know the place to resolve the issue. I seemed ahead to becoming a member of from the waitlist, however I might by no means move KYC on the day of the app’s launch. What’s incorrect? I’m actually begging you to take my cash so I can play this sport, nevertheless it appears you don’t need it?”
Hong Kong crypto scams worsen
Hong Kong cityscape. Source: Pexels
Currently, Hong Kong residents can not commerce cryptocurrencies until they’re labeled as “skilled buyers” or have at the least 8 million Hong Kong {dollars} ($1.02 million) in bankable belongings. However, these laws have achieved little to curtail the rise of crypto scams.
A latest Hong Kong police report cited by Rthk.hk revealed that within the first 10 months of 2022, the particular administrative area recorded 1,503 circumstances of funding scams involving whole belongings of $98.5 million, up 10% from the identical interval final 12 months.
About 70% of the scams had been labeled as involving crypto. One sufferer, Mr. Lee, reportedly misplaced 180,000 HKD ($23,000) after being contacted by a consultant claiming entry to unique insider data on the value of SUSHI tokens. Mr. Lee later known as the police after his supposed buying and selling account was eliminated with out clarification.
Square Enix all in on blockchain
In an annual letter revealed on Jan. 1, Yosuke Matsuda, president of Japanese gaming big Square Enix, stated that the corporate would shift its enterprise focus to blockchain leisure. The transfer follows Square Enix’s announcement on May 3 that it could promote its blockbuster online game franchise Tomb Raider and use the proceeds to spend money on new initiatives equivalent to blockchain, although it nonetheless retains different fashionable franchises equivalent to Final Fantasy. Matsuda wrote:
“I believe it’s truthful to say that blockchain gained vital recognition as a discipline in 2022, as evidenced by ‘Web 3.0’ changing into a firmly established buzzword amongst businesspeople. However, the 12 months additionally noticed volatility within the cryptocurrency and NFT markets that tracked the dramatic shifts within the macroeconomy described above.”
Matsuda additionally stated that apart from monetization, blockchain and NFTs needs to be “delivering new experiences and pleasure to prospects” and that the corporate had “a number of blockchain video games primarily based on authentic IPs below improvement.” In its newest submitting, Square Enix reported 163 billion Japanese yen ($1.23 billion) in income and 39.4 billion yen ($297 million) in revenue for the primary six months to Sept. 30.
Zhiyuan Sun
Zhiyuan solar is a journalist at Cointelegraph specializing in technology-related information. He has a number of years of expertise writing for main monetary media retailers equivalent to The Motley Fool, Nasdaq.com and Seeking Alpha.
