Reporter Lan Tianming
"Sale is a second light", "You can earn it when you buy it", "Second-hand transactions can be speculated to nearly 100,000 yuan"... Recently, "visible, intangible" digital collections have become popular.
A reporter from Xinhua Daily Telegraph found that there is a false fire behind its hot speculation, and there are hidden dangers such as transaction risks, illegal currency speculation, and intellectual property infringement.
Industry insiders suggest that to prevent the digital collection market from continuing to “run wild” with problems, benign supervision and industry regulation should be adopted to make technology better serve art.
The price has exploded more than a hundred times, and digital collection transactions are hidden in false fire
In recent days, digital collection transactions have frequently attracted attention: the Bing Dun Dun digital blind box officially authorized by the International Olympic Committee is on sale, and each is sold out in an instant. The first socialized digital collection of "Shrimp Picture" was finally sold for 300,000 yuan at the Shanghai Jiahe auction; the NFT work of American digital artist Beeple was auctioned at a Christie's auction for about $69 million...
The full name of NFT is Non-Fungible Token, also known as non-fungible token.
Among them, the field of digital collections is one of the fastest application scenarios for NFTs.
Many seemingly ordinary digital collections such as mosaic headshots, pictures, and videos are frequently sold at high prices.
It is not uncommon for a single digital collection to be sold for millions of dollars on OpenSea, the world's largest NFT trading platform.
"At present, there is no conclusion about what a digital collection is. It usually refers to the digital art works released on the blockchain and digital collection platforms after using the blockchain technology to obtain a unique identifier that cannot be tampered with." China Mobile Communications Federation Metaverse Yu Jianing, executive director of the Industry Committee, said.
Yu Jianing said: "Blockchain technology does not directly change the content of the artwork itself, but it can generate a unique logo, which can be understood as an unmodifiable property right certificate, which usually makes digital collections unique, authentic and traceable. For example, it has added 'value-added' and solved the key pain points of digital art trading. Coupled with the influx of capital from various sources and the emergence of platforms like mushrooms after a rain, the market has continued to heat up."
According to the reporter’s incomplete statistics, there are more than 100 platforms that issue digital collections in China, and these platforms have similar “playing methods”.
The ways to obtain digital collections include pre-sale, auction, lottery, blind box opening, synthesis, and new user registration.
The pre-sale price of most digital collections is relatively "close to the people": users can snap up them for a few yuan to several hundred yuan, and the "second light" on sale has become the norm.
The reporter joined more than 1,000 digital collection trading social groups.
Someone rolls out a list of digital collections that are first released each day; someone offers journalists software to snap up new releases.
The software can "seckill" the newly released collections at a precise time point, and the price is 200 yuan.
At the same time, the second-hand transactions of digital collections with "low-price" first release are "fake fire".
At present, different digital collection platforms have different regulations on second-hand transactions: for example, the Magic Core platform does not allow secondary transactions; the Tanjing platform allows users to transfer gifts; on more platforms, users can resell the collections themselves. , Free pricing and transactions, the platform extracts transaction fees, copyright fees, and withdrawal fees ranging from several to a dozen percent from each transaction.
In social networks, the price of some second-hand digital collections has been “hyped up” by more than 100 times: someone offered nearly 10,000 yuan to buy the “Hangzhou Asian Games Digital Torch” with an issue price of 39 yuan; a single piece of the Dunhuang series of digital collections with an issue price of 19.9 yuan It was sold for more than 15,000 yuan; on multiple platforms, the second-hand price of some digital collections was even fired to nearly 100,000 yuan.
Despite the inflated prices, some digital collections have limited authorship rights.
Platforms such as Magic Core, Magic Collection, and Unique Art stipulate that "the intellectual property rights of digital collections are owned by the issuer and other rights holders" or "unless the digital artwork rights holders agree in writing, digital artworks shall not be used for any purpose other than transfer. commercial purpose” etc.
A number of players told reporters that they do not care about the artistic value and copyright of the works, "the main reason is that the prices of some collections are rising rapidly, buying low, selling high, not stuck, and making money is the 'kingdom'".
A person who invested millions of yuan to hype digital collections revealed: "At present, some dealers use crowdfunding to speculate collections on some platforms. Some platforms will contact the dealers after they find out, and help the dealers to buy them at a lower price. Release good news to the outside world, work with the dealer to push the price up, and finally let users take over.”
"Even if you don't engage in hype, you can make a profit by opening a platform alone." The person in charge of a digital collection platform development company told reporters that the price of developing a digital collection client is only about 30,000 yuan. If the collection is distributed in overseas areas On the blockchain platform, there is almost no cost.
He also suggested to reporters: "You spend several thousand yuan every month to hire an artist to paint. Even if the initial price of a painting is set at 20 yuan, 2,000 copies will be issued, and the income will be 40,000 yuan immediately, and the return will be fast."
Ding Feipeng, director of Beijing Liantong Law Firm, said that some domestic digital collection platforms rely partly on issuance fees and partly on transaction fees. It also contributed to the hype.”
Going to the "wind" needs to cross multiple "hurdles"
The reporter's investigation found that there are still gaps in the current relevant supervision and legal regulations related to digital collections, and digital collections need to cross multiple "hurdles" to enter the "window".
"Pit" is constantly buried in the transaction.
On the Heimao Complaint Platform, there are more than 1,000 complaints related to digital collections, involving forced sales, non-delivery, and failure to receive cash withdrawals.
Mr. Ma from Zhejiang, who had previously listed a second-hand digital collection for 55,000 yuan on the only art platform, was forced to sell it at the "cabbage price" of 5 yuan by the system, which could not be undone.
Many users said that their collections worth tens of thousands of yuan were forcibly sold for tens of yuan.
In response to the complaint platform, the platform stated that the user agreement clearly stated that "the platform operator will not be responsible for the loss of interests or profits caused by your use of the digital art e-commerce platform under any circumstances".
Mr. Li from Hubei said that he had previously tried to withdraw the account balance of more than 10,000 yuan on a digital collection platform.
The platform rules also allow the refund to be credited to the account on the "T+1" day, but after a period of time, the relevant refund has not been credited to the account, and the customer service staff did not get a reply after trying to contact the account.
Transaction security issues on digital collection platforms have also emerged.
In April, an artist posted on social media that the digital collection of the ape portrait painting he had previously received was stolen by a phishing website.
Since then, on the foreign NFT trading platform, the avatar was traded at 130 Ethereum and 155 Ethereum virtual currency respectively in about an hour.
There is also a phenomenon of "willful" combination with overseas blockchain platforms.
The reporter found that some digital collection platforms still use overseas blockchain technologies such as Ethereum, Polygon, and Huobi Ecological Chain to "chain" digital collections.
Relevant persons told reporters that the process of "uploading" pictures to the overseas blockchain platform is very simple. After uploading the pictures directly, a string of digital strings can be obtained in a few seconds, representing the success of "uplinking".
The technical person in charge of a domestic digital collection platform said that digital collections "on the chain" using overseas blockchain technology can theoretically be traded, mortgaged and replaced with virtual currency on the overseas virtual currency trading platform.
"This means that someone can purchase digital collections in RMB, exchange them for virtual currency, and then convert them into foreign currencies in countries and regions where virtual currency transactions are legal. There is a risk of using digital collections for virtual currency transactions and money laundering." He said.
In September last year, the central bank issued a relevant notice stating that "virtual currency-related business activities are illegal financial activities" and "there are legal risks in participating in virtual currency investment and trading activities."
The risk of intellectual property infringement is gradually emerging.
On May 28, Xu Beihong Art Museum issued a statement stating that it is concerned that some digital platforms use Mr. Xu Beihong's name as a gimmick to sell related digital collections. Some of the original works of these digital collections are counterfeit works, and some cannot provide complete traceability evidence. Some works have nothing to do with Mr. Xu Beihong at all.
On April 20, the Hangzhou Internet Court pronounced an intellectual property infringement case involving NFTs.
The plaintiff Qice Company found that on the "Metaverse" platform operated by the defendant's technology company, a user posted the "Fat Tiger Vaccine" NFT, priced at 899 yuan.
The NFT digital work is exactly the same as the illustration work published by Ma Qianli on Weibo, and even has the author's Weibo watermark in the lower right corner.
The defendant not only failed to perform its audit obligations, but also charged a certain percentage of transaction fees.
The Hangzhou Internet Court ordered the defendant to immediately delete the "Fat Tiger Vaccination" NFT work published on the platform involved, and compensate Qice Company 4,000 yuan.
"The trial of intellectual property infringement cases is difficult to identify. Although domestic platforms currently use relatively independent and controllable alliance chain technology, if a large number of works apply for 'on-chain' in the future, the platform may not have the ability to determine whether all works are infringing or not. Make an accurate judgment." said Pan Helin, co-director of the Digital Economy and Financial Innovation Research Center of Zhejiang University International Business School.
Pan Helin said that, on the other hand, the blockchain technology used by overseas NFT platforms is mostly open "public chain", which has the characteristics of more thorough anonymity, de-neutralization, and difficulty in tampering. "The source and ownership of works are reviewed, and it is almost impossible to revoke or delete infringing digital collections.
Prevent NFTs from becoming illegal "new favorites"
Recently, China Internet Finance Association, China Banking Association, and China Securities Association issued an initiative calling on member units to resolutely curb the tendency of NFT financialization and securitization, and strictly prevent the risk of illegal financial activities.
The three associations have made requirements for member units to participate in NFT projects in terms of issuing financial products, providing transaction services, public offering financing, pricing and settlement, real-name authentication, investment and financing, etc., aiming to cut off the secondary transaction link of NFT.
Experts said that although the state has clear regulations on virtual currency risk prevention, there are still insufficient regulatory rules for virtual assets and derivatives such as digital collections.
Relevant departments urgently need to increase the exploration and research on NFT supervision, and issue relevant regulations as soon as possible to avoid the occurrence of illegal acts such as malicious speculation of NFT products and borrowing of NFT concepts to raise funds.
Ding Feipeng believes that the decentralization of digital collection platforms should have boundaries, and domestic platforms should be prevented from wantonly combining with overseas "public chains".
Wu Junjie, a digital economy researcher at the Blockchain Development Research Institute of Harbin Institute of Technology (Shenzhen), believes that the digital collection platform should strictly implement "do not use virtual currency as or in disguise as a pricing and settlement tool for issuance transactions, and prohibit the provision of centralized transactions, listing transactions, and standardized contracts for NFTs. Transactions and other services. The issuing, selling, and purchasing entities of the digital collection platform must be forced to conduct real-name authentication, properly preserve customer identity information and issuance transaction records, and actively cooperate with anti-money laundering work.”
"Everything can't be NFTable." Pan Helin suggested that the market supervision department and the cultural and tourism department should take the lead in formulating relevant regulations, referring to the regulations on the operation and management of artworks, to clarify the attributes of digital collections, platform access, business norms and other criteria.
Wu Junjie believes that the digital collection platform should formulate relevant systems for the review of the ownership and source of "on-chain" assets, including the data requirements for ownership review, review standards, complaint handling rules and complaint handling procedures for intellectual property disputes, and intellectual property protection. Daily monitoring and processing mechanisms, etc.
"Through the establishment and implementation of the system, the platform can be prevented from becoming an accomplice and venue for the infringing distribution of pirated products and inferior products." He said.
"Governing the hype and chaos in the digital collection market needs to be solved by building healthy platform trading rules." said Hu Jie, a professor of practice at Shanghai Advanced Institute of Finance, Shanghai Jiao Tong University.
Experts suggest that the platform should make it clear to users in the user agreement and prominent positions that the platform prohibits any form of speculation, and set an upper price range, limit over-the-counter transactions, and prevent financial leverage and other anti-hype mechanisms.
In addition, communication between digital collection platforms can also be strengthened to establish industry self-discipline guidelines.