How Crypto Foe China Is Embracing NFTs, With Strings Attached

China’s government has made clear its distaste for the free-wheeling, anti-establishment cryptocurrency community. When it comes to crypto’s blockchain technology, however, it’s a different story. President Xi Jinping has urged mass adoption of digital ledgers to help turn China into an industrial and digital powerhouse. The country is also embracing the latest blockchain craze -- non-fungible tokens -- albeit with conditions attached.

More or less. Beijing’s paramount concern is maintaining social and economic stability, hence its dim view of speculative, volatile crypto trading and its association with gambling, money laundering, alleged scams and other problems. In 2017, the central bank shut down exchanges that hosted trades between yuan and Bitcoin and banned individuals or businesses from raising money from crypto tokens. Renewed crackdowns in 2021 forced exchanges like Huobi to stop serving Chinese customers entirely. Crypto miners fled the country when regulators decided they would no longer tolerate the high energy consumption and carbon emissions associated with their business.