In an proclamation made on Wednesday, China'south official Xinhua News Agency volition issue its first series of nonfungible token (NFT) collectibles. The motility is a thumbs up to blockchain technology previously shunned by the People's Republic of Cathay (People's republic of china). In an official notice, Xinhua plans to publish 10,000 copies of 11 photos taken past journalists in 2022.

The stride into NFTs is puzzling in low-cal of recent events in the earth's second-largest economy. Following a nationwide crypto crackdown where Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) mining was banned, Prc has recently taken aim at NFTs and metaverses and proposed that they should exist heavily monitored. Despite the anti-crypto sentiment, tech giants Tencent and Huawei were not discouraged from pursuing trademarks in the metaverse.

Elsewhere, in early December, as office of a broader anti-crypto crackdown, some websites in Beijing, including ChainNews, went offline. Chinese crypto media kept a low profile on their websites and instead focused on growing communities on Twitter and Telegram.

Curiously, even so, it's not the country's commencement move into NFTs. During the "DeFi Summer 2.0," The South China Morning time Mail created a series of NFTs using a new token standard chosen "ARTIFACT," which is designed to preserve historical avails on the blockchain. Yet, it's important to note that the SCMP is based in Hong Kong. As a result, the paper benefits from higher levels of autonomy as well every bit the executive, legislative and independent judicial power for which Hong Kong is known.

Related: Chinese companies embark on a metaverse trademark race

Hong Kong is no stranger to blockchain technology or minting NFTs. In June this year, pro-Hong Kong activists managed to archive articles from the Hong Kong pro-democracy newspaper onto the blockchain. More than iv,000 Apple Daily articles were uploaded to ARWeave, a popular blockchain storage platform backed by Andreessen Horowitz.

Ultimately, the Red china'due south NFT release begs the question: Does Xinhua's issuance of NFTs point a nod toward adopting blockchain technology? At the fourth dimension of writing, Chinese NFT advocates remain restricted in their trading activities. NFTs cannot exist resold one time purchased, while the only currency available to NFT fans is the national currency, the renminbi. Given Red china's largely anti-crypto stance in 202, more show of the Communist china's moves into the blockchain space is required.