Jingtan, Alibaba affiliate Ant Group’s non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace, has relaxed transfer rules that mandate users to hold on to newly purchased assets for a specified period as part of Wednesday’s platform update.

See related article: China NFT platforms expand into Hong Kong in face of compliance risks on mainland

Fast facts

  • Jingtan has reduced the native lock period for primary transfers, or when users send free NFTs to other customers, to 90 days from the previous 180 days. 
  • The marketplace has also removed the 720-day transfer restriction on secondary transfer for users that were gifted “digital collectibles” – a local euphemism for NFTs.  
  • Jingtan users have been on the move to flip their NFTs in resale markets, such as XMeta, and local social media platforms since the update was announced last week.
  • Dunhuang Murals, the first NFT collection issued on Jingtan, was on sale at XMeta for 5,500 yuan (US$803.58) on Wednesday afternoon, Hong Kong time. The collection was issued at 9.9 yuan in 2021, and was selling for 8,000 yuan on January 28. 
  • Jingtan started enforcing a 180-day lock period for NFT transfers in November 2021 as state-backed media outlets lashed out warnings against speculative trading activities related to digital collectibles. Local NFT platforms have since banned users from reselling assets on native platforms of issuance. 
  • The restrictions in local marketplaces spawned ingenious black market auctions for secondary NFT sales, often hosted on social media platforms. 
  • Chinese NFT markets have started to migrate to Hong Kong to offset local compliance risks while at least 78 marketplaces closed down from September to November last year, according to local internet researcher Sootoo Meta.

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