Alibaba, Tencent tighten platforms rules on NFTs

Alibaba Group Holding and Tencent Holdings have tightened rules to restrict their non-fungible tokens (NFTs) trading platforms in an effort to avoid potential scrutiny of their digital collectible businesses.

Jingtan, Alibaba affiliate Ant Group’s non-fungible token platform, has updated its policy to increase the penalty for trading digital collectibles through an over-the-counter (OTC) desk, and snatching up digital collectibles during sales with malware.

“Users who involved in such criminal activities will be blocked accounts or hand over to policies,” Jingtan said in a statement.

Chinese super messaging app WeChat, operated by social and gaming giant Tencent, has removed several digital collectible mini programs from its platform for violation of the rules.

Xihu No.1 and Dongyiyuandian were among the removed mini-programs.

The rise in the number of illegal transactions and bot purchases for NFTs has prompted tech giants to take preemptive measures.

In January, Jingtan punished more than 300 accounts for using plug-ins and scripts to snap up digital collectibles, followed by punishment of 56 accounts for reselling digital collectible for profits after scalpers maliciously drove up the price of various collections in online second-hand markets.

The platform said it firmly reject the resales of digital collectibles in any form because such wrongdoings carry a risk of fraud and may trigger unhealthy speculation.

On Jingtan, buyers are allowed to transfer NFTs to other users for free after holding the digital collectibles for at least 180 days

Jingtan, which is operated by Ant Group on its consortium blockchain Antchain, used a phase “digital collectible” to describe the digital assets it issued, instead of referring it as non-fungible tokens (NFTs) in an attempt to align with the government’s increasing scrutiny of any speculative activities related to crypto.

Chinese government has not explicitly banned NFTs, which are digital assets that represents real-world objects like art, music, videos, and avatars, buyer’s ownership recorded on that blockchain. However, it has repeatedly warned risks of fraud associated with the NFT market frenzy and questioned whether NFT is another tulip mania hyped by capitals.