To avoid speculation in non-fungible tokens (NFTs), China’s popular WeChat messaging platform has blocked certain accounts tied to the digital assets.
According to the site, it has “rectified” accounts that it discovered were supporting NFT market speculation, which can contribute to drive up prices.
Although cryptocurrency trading was banned last year, there are no rules against NFTs in China.
NFTs, like any other type of property, can be bought and sold in China.
As a result, they’ve been dubbed the “digital equivalent of collectibles.” They do not, however, have a physical form of their own, and experts have warned about market hazards.
WeChat responded on Thursday to local media reports that the accounts had been suspended.
“Recently standardised and rectified public accounts and modest programs for speculation and secondary sales of digital collections,” the platform claimed.
This was done “in accordance with relevant national rules, in order to avoid the risk of speculation in virtual currency transactions,” according to the statement.
When contacted by the BBC, Tencent, the Chinese internet behemoth that owns WeChat, declined to comment further.
The action comes at a time when the Chinese government is closely scrutinizing the country’s technological sector.
Since last year, the industry has been targeted by the government, with crackdowns on ecommerce enterprises, online finance services, social media platforms, gaming companies, cloud computing providers, ride-hailing apps, and cryptocurrency miners and exchanges among the targets.
Despite all of the regulations, trading in NFTs remains legal in China. The digital assets, on the other hand, are based on Beijing-regulated technology.
Buyers must purchase NFTs in the local currency, the yuan, rather than cryptocurrencies, which are prohibited under the rules.
The “one-of-a-kind assets” were sold for tens of thousands of dollars, if not millions of dollars.
