According to a story that was released by a local news agency on December 28 called Sina News, China is planning to create its first regulated platform for trading nonfungible tokens (NFT) on January 1, 2023. The Chinese Technology Exchange, which is run by the government, worked with Art Exhibitions China, which is also run by the government, and Huban Digital Copyrights Ltd., a private company, to set up the business, which is a secondary market for trading NFTs.
In addition to facilitating the trading of NFTs, the platform will also make it possible to trade copyrights associated with digital assets. According to one individual aware of the situation, the intiative’s objective is to control and prevent excessive speculation in secondary [NFT] marketplaces.
Yu Jianing, a major specialist on digital assets and metaverse developments in China, was recently interviewed. He says that digital assets constitute a new type of trade, and many aspects of laws, rules and supervisory policies have a long way to go before they are perfected. It presents new challenges for industry supervision and regulation. As a result, there is a significant amount of ambiguity. The listing and trading of digital assets is a duty that squarely falls on the shoulders of platforms. When compared to digital copyrights and intellectual property rights, the regulatory soundness risk associated with digital assets is much higher.
The Hangzhou Internet Court, which specializes in internet-related legal disputes in China, previously ruled on November 29 that NFTs are virtual property protected by law and that they “have the object characteristics of property rights such as value, scarcity, controllability, and tradeability.” China recognizes cryptocurrency as a type of virtual property protected by law. However, since 2021, cryptocurrency exchanges have been illegal in China.
