China Parliament Member to Ask Govt to Illegalize NFT Speculation

• Feng Qiya plans to propose NFT regulatory system at the annual Beijing meeting.
• It includes clamping down on NFT speculation to avoid financialization.
• Previously, China NFT exchange Huanhe shut down after increased scrutiny.

In an exclusive interview, Feng Qiya, a Chinese deputy to the National People’s Congress (NPC), said she would propose establishing a digital collection regulatory system in the annual Beijing meeting called “Two Sessions.”

Two Sessions is the nation’s most important annual political gathering with the NPC and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC). Part of Qiya’s proposition would be clarifying the legal characterization of digital collections, NFTs. Additionally, Feng intends to ask the government to clamp down on NFT speculation so that digital collectibles would not be turned into investments and sold as securities.

Qiya was quoted saying:

While the digital collection industry is developing rapidly, the current supervision is still based on industry self-discipline and local regulations, lacking a top-down supervision system coordinated by multiple departments.

Furthermore, the report highlighted that digital collections in China were quite different from those in foreign countries. According to the report, other countries’ digital collectibles use virtual currency for anonymous transactions, where users primarily seek financial value. In contrast, digital collections in China tend to operate on real-name transactions using the Chinese currency, RMB, emphasizing the content and collection value rather than purely on their financial value.

Notably, some Chinese NFT platforms shut down operations in response to criticism from government agencies. Last August, the Huanhe mobile app, the NFT marketplace owned by China’s digital giant Tencent Holdings, halted NFT sales and began refunds.

The Huanhe app, formally released in August 2021, stopped providing users with NFTs a year after increased regulatory scrutiny. Huanhe was one of China’s most popular NFT exchanges, selling out new items instantly after listing.

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