China’s official news agency to issue NFTs as a unique year-end review

11 special photographic reports from historic moments in 2021 will be issued as digital collectibles

China’s government-backed Xinhua news agency is all set to issue news collectibles in the form of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFT), Bloomberg reported yesterday. The initiative to engage with NFTs comes despite an ongoing regulatory crackdown on digital assets and crypto mining in the country.

In an announcement, the agency explained that the news collectibles will be minted from chosen photography reports of historic moments in 2021 and will be issued at no cost on its news app tomorrow.

Popular media outlets including New York Times and Cable News Network have previously undertaken similar initiatives. A NFT about a column on NFTs in the New York Times was sold for over $560,000.

Xinhua’s digital news collectibles are of “special commemorative significance and collection value” and will be equipped with unique identification and ownership details on the Tencent Cloud blockchain.  The official news agency of the Chinese government also revealed that a total of 11 digital collectibles will be offered. Each collectible will be limited to 10,000 units in the first batch.

The collection is expected to feature a photo commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party in order to preserve the milestone as a “digital memory written in the metaverse”. The agency remarked that the initiative is being seen as a unique year-end review.

While Chinese authorities have taken a stringent regulatory stand against the crypto space, banning a range of activities from exchanges and transactions to mining and ICOs, NFTs continue to be a grey area.

Domestic firms tread cautiously with Tencent Holdings Ltd. and Ant Group Co issuing NFTs only on tightly-controlled blockchain platforms. It must also be noted that these companies changed the name NFTs to “digital collectibles” on their official platforms.

While it is unclear how the Chinese policymakers will react to the rise of the metaverse, the NFTs initiative hints that all is not lost for blockchain technology in China.