Wuhan omits NFTs from metaverse plan amid regulatory uncertainty in China

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The Chi­nese city of Wuhan had report­ed­ly shelved its aspi­ra­tional non­fun­gi­ble tokens (NFTs) plans amid grow­ing reg­u­la­to­ry uncer­tain­ty around the cryp­to and Web3 tech­nolo­gies in the country.

Wuhan first announced its plans to sup­port meta­verse and NFTs in the after­math of the coro­n­avirus break­out as a mea­sure to boost its econ­o­my ruined by the pan­dem­ic. The city was the epi­cen­ter of the COVID-19 breakout.

The Wuhan government’s draft indus­tri­al plan for the city’s meta­verse econ­o­my devel­op­ment includ­ed a line about NFTs. How­ev­er, that part has now been omit­ted from the lat­est ver­sion, accord­ing to a report by South Chi­na Morn­ing Post. The report not­ed that the revised ver­sion still encour­ages busi­ness­es to focus on decen­tral­ized tech and Web3 but makes no men­tion of NFTs.

Under the new­ly revised plan, Wuhan aims to fos­ter more than 200 meta­verse com­pa­nies and build at least two meta­verse indus­tri­al estates by 2025. 

Look­ing at the revised ver­sion of the draft, the Chi­nese gov­ern­ment seems to do away with any­thing that involves the exchange of tokens or dig­i­tal prop­er­ties. The stance has been clear over the years as the gov­ern­ment devel­op­ment plans have includ­ed meta­verse-relat­ed tech­nolo­gies. For exam­ple, sev­er­al Chi­nese cities, includ­ing the cap­i­tal city of Bei­jing and Shang­hai, have announced meta­verse inno­va­tion plans, but any pri­vate busi­ness or tech giants involved with NFTs have faced gov­ern­ment hos­til­i­ty.

Relat­ed: NFT plat­forms in Chi­na grow 5X in four months despite gov­ern­ment warnings

At the start of the year, Chi­na was aim­ing to sep­a­rate NFTs from cryp­tocur­ren­cies in a bid to help the nascent indus­try grow despite a blan­ket ban on the lat­ter. This result­ed in a peak of inter­est among Chi­nese com­mu­ni­ties as NFT mar­ket­place Opensea was flood­ed with list­ings from Shang­hai dur­ing COVID lockdowns. 

How­ev­er, with the rise in pop­u­lar­i­ty, the num­ber of fraud­u­lent activ­i­ties rose as well, lead­ing to sev­er­al gov­ern­ment warn­ings to investors against NFT trade.

Chi­na was very clear with its stance on cryp­to use in the coun­try and even­tu­al­ly imposed a blan­ket ban in 2021 after sev­er­al years of numer­ous restric­tions. How­ev­er, the government’s stance on emerg­ing Web3 tech­nolo­gies, espe­cial­ly those that involve the exchange of tokens or dig­i­tal col­lectibles (NFTs), seems far from clear at the moment.

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