Residents of Shanghai, China’s most populous city, are using blockchain technology to preserve memories of their state’s ongoing COVID-19 lockdown.
Images, video and sound audio are being stored as non-fungible tokens (NFTs) that are sold and bought using cryptocurrency. According to a Reuters report, this is due to the fact that these tokens are built on blockchain technology and therefore cannot be deleted.
Since the beginning of April, the entire city of Shanghai has been on total lockdown due to rising cases of the Covid-19 omicron variant. On March 27 alone, municipal officials documented 2,500 new cases, locking down the eastern region of the state.
Shortly after, the same measures were implemented in the Western District. However, on April 3, the state government thought it better to shut down the entire city.
As a result of this directive, there has been a shortage of food and medical supplies, for which various residents of the Chinese economic capital have taken to social media to express their anger and displeasure.
Shanghai residents try to avoid Chinese censors
Chinese censorship agents are reportedly pulling these posts by referring to them as “rumours”. While many Shanghai citizens commit to posting content on social media platforms, others have turned to NFTs as a more effective way to make their voices heard. By mining tokens containing content on the ongoing lockdown, these memories become indelible or, some would say, permanent.
These NFTs are mined and put up for sale in various NFT markets. A notable moment in this ongoing saga was April 22, when Chinese Internet censors worked overnight to block the spread of a video titled “The Voice of April”. The video was six minutes long, and consisted of a compilation of voice recordings from Shanghai citizens frustrated with the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak.
As of Monday, more than 700 NFTs, curated from the short film, were available for sale on OpenC – the largest NFT platform – along with other NFTs related to the Shanghai lockdown.
Amid China’s outright ban on cryptocurrency, the government has allowed the use of NFTs, provided the tokens are minted on a state-regulated network and transactions are enabled by the country’s currency, the Chinese yuan.
Citizens as well as major Chinese brands have been attracted by the potential of the NFT market. Antgroup, along with Tencent, a subsidiary of Alibaba, are examples of Chinese companies that have launched networks for mining NFTs. So far, the interest of NFTs in China has been growing steadily, and according to Lead Leo, the sales volume of Chinese NFTs is expected to reach $4.57 billion in 2026.
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