Alibaba NFTs… censored?
On June 8, AliExpress, the online retail subsidiary of Chinese tech conglomerate Alibaba, announced that it had joined forces with Web3 developer The Moment3! to create a series of NFTs based on shopping themes.
The upcoming collection will feature 5,555 NFTs and is scheduled to debut on June 25, 2023. Less than one day after the announcement was made, AliExpress’ tweet was deleted. Nevertheless, AliExpress’ dev partner, posted a statement confirming the drop.
While no reason has been provided for why AliExpress deleted its original announcement, Chinese authorities have been cracking down on anything crypto-related and forcing firms to remove keywords related to “nonfungible tokens” from their products.
In April, Bitcoin price quotes were added to Douyin, which is the Chinese version of TikTok with over 1 billion users, for less than 48 hours before it was removed by authorities. Cryptocurrencies-fiat transactions, mining, and exchanges (but not outright ownership) are currently banned in China.
The deleted AliExpress NFT announcement (PANewsLab)
Binance humiliated on Chinese TV
If there is anything that the U.S. and China, the world’s two largest competing superpowers, have in common, it is their mutual hatred for cryptocurrency exchanges. On June 6, one day after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission sued Binance over allegations of operating an unlicensed exchange and selling unregistered securities in the U.S., Chinese Central Television (CCTV) reported on the lawsuit for its one billion viewers noting that Bitcoin and Binance’s BNB token had fallen sharply due to the regulatory action. CCTV rarely covers anything to do with cryptocurrency. Curiously, the broadcast also acknowledged for the first time that Binance is the world’s “largest cryptocurrency exchange.”
The CCTV segment on the SEC lawsuit against Binance (Binance ZH)
Previously, CCTV broadcast a program about new cryptocurrency exchange rules in China’s…
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