WeChat, the communications platform owned by Chinese tech giant Tencent, has banned secondary trading of NFTs and said it would impose ‘punishments’ on accounts tied to cryptocurrency trading. This was reported by the South China Morning Post.
A corresponding clause has appeared in the platform’s rules.
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Bans and restrictions threaten users involved in trading cryptocurrencies or giving recommendations for such transactions.
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Tencent also intends to ‘adjust’ accounts if they are found to provide services or content for secondary trading of ‘digital collectibles’. The functionality of such accounts could be restricted or even completely blocked.
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Such measures are likely linked to the authorities’ negative stance toward cryptocurrencies and NFT. In April, Chinese regulators urged companies to avoid interacting with non-fungible tokens.
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changed the term NFT to ‘digital collectibles’. Other platforms also distanced themselves from the definition of ‘non-fungible tokens’.
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In 2021, Tencent and another Chinese tech giant Ant Group metaverses and NFTs could turn out to be bubbles, Ponzi schemes or other forms of financial fraud.
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In March 2022, NFT marketplaces owned by Ant Group and Tencent, due to lack of regulatory clarity updated the user agreements. As a result, WeChat removed the accounts of several platforms.
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For more on what NFT is, see our explainer cards:
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