According to local media reports, China will soon introduce a marketplace for digital assets under a public-private partnership.
The report said that the aim was to launch a regulated trading platform for trading digital collectibles, as the Chinese government wants to curb the practice of market speculation where these assets are concerned.
The announcement
Local media has announced that the authorities in China are gearing up to launch a platform that will be state-controlled and aimed at trading digital assets and non-fungible tokens (NFTs).
This initiative is actually a product of joint efforts of private companies and government organizations. On Wednesday, Sina Finance published a report, which talked about the ‘China Digital Asset Trading Platform’.
According to the report, the partnership formed for developing the platform includes Huaban Digital Copyright Service Center Co. Limited, China Cultural Relics Exchange Center and the China Technology Exchange.
It further revealed that the platform is expected to be launched in the country on January 1st, 2023. The China Digital Exchange license will be granted to the marketplace for carrying out its operations.
As far as the setup is concerned, it involves the Beijing municipal government, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the State Intellectual Property Office and the Ministry of Science and Technology.
The platform
The China Digital Exchange will be used for facilitating the sale and purchase of technological, scientific and intellectual property rights in the country.
The underlying infrastructure required for the new trading platform will also be provided by the exchange and it will have the responsibility of transaction processing and making settlements.
It should also be noted that there will be complete compliance with all applicable regulations where the new marketplace is concerned.
Yin Tao, President of Huaban, explained that the platform would offer trading services for digital copyrights and digital collectibles.
Digital collectibles
Since there has been a crackdown in China against all crypto-related activities, the media prefers to use the term digital collectibles as opposed to ‘NFTs’ because they do not want to be associated with crypto.
As far as compliance and supervision is concerned, there are some uncertainties in the market and the compliance risks are greater.
However, the chair of the Blockchain Committee, Yu Jianing said that they would gradually make improvements to regulatory policies and laws to provide a better environment to the users.
It should be noted that the China Communications Industry Association oversees the Blockchain Committee in the country.
Chinese regulatory authorities had imposed a ban on digital collectibles’ resale in the country because it wanted to reduce any market speculation related to these assets.
It is believed that this was the primary reason that Tencent decided to shut down Huanhe, the NFT platform.
The company had announced the shutdown of the platform in July, which was just a year after they had launched it.
Wechat, which is a popular social media app in the country, also announced in June that it was closing public accounts that were facilitating NFT trading.