Alibaba launches the NFT marketplace

Alibaba has developed a new marketplace that enables trademark owners to sell non-fungible tokens (NFTs) that represent rights to their copyright.

Alibaba Group Holding, a Chinese multinational e-commerce company, has established a new nonfungible token (NFT) platform that would enable trademark owners to sell tokenized rights to their intellectual property. The new NFT market, named “Blockchain Digital Copyright and Asset-Trade,” is accessible through Alibaba’s Auction platform. The platform will issue NFTs on the “New Copyright Blockchain,” a distributed ledger technology platform that will be centrally managed by the Sichuan Blockchain Association’s Copyright Committee.

The marketplace, according to a Tuesday report from Alibaba-owned news outlet South China Morning Post (SCMP), is aimed at writers, musicians, painters, and game developers. The marketplace is already operational and is now hosting multiple NFTs that will be auctioned next month. To participate in auctions, bidders must make a 500 yuan (about $77) deposit. Each of the upcoming auctions will have a reserve price of $15.

Buyers can access their collections using the WeChat-integrated crypto portfolio application Bit Universe. SCMP reporter Josh Ye tweeted about the new marketplace, stating that “while the technology itself does not prevent illicit copying. The platform’s sales involve total ownership of the works purchased.”

Numerous NFTs on exhibit makes no mention of the rights granted to consumers, and one appears to depict unlicensed Star Wars fan art. While this is the largest NFT announcement made by Alibaba to date, a number of the company’s subsidiaries have previously embraced nonfungible tokens.

Cointelegraph reported in July that Alibaba-owned e-commerce portal Taobao for the first time exhibited NFTs during its annual Maker Festival, which honors Chinese art and business. The event featured the selling of Huang Heshan’s NFT-based real estate. In the same month, SCMP released an NFT project dubbed “Artifact” that featured tokenized historical moments from the publication’s 118-year-old collection, such as the 1997 handover of Hong Kong from the United Kingdom to China.

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