Grab a new track! The West Coast seeks to develop an NFT art industry ecosystem

Following the inclusion of the "meta-universe" in the district government work report in January this year, Xuhui District proposed to seize the new track of NFT (non-homogeneous tokens) and promote the development of the regional digital economy. The reporter learned from the "NFT Artwork" Industry Development Exchange Meeting held in Xuhui District on the date that the district will establish an NFT art industry ecosystem with the West Bank as the core area, and will establish an NFT Art Ecological Alliance in the region.

"When NFTs are superimposed with various forms such as art, games, and sports, they form a new business ecology and bring more fresh 'ways of playing'." At the scene, the pioneer enterprises that have carried out the layout or exploration of the "NFT artwork" industry said this.

NFT+ Art, the West Bank builds a peak on the plateau

NFT is a digital certificate of deed based on blockchain technology, with verifiable, unique, indivisible and traceable characteristics that can be used to mark the ownership of a specific asset. For example, people can bind digital paintings, movies, games, etc. to NFTs to make these digital products unique, so as to achieve cross-platform circulation and transactions.

NFTs were first "out of the loop" through artworks. Zhang Jun, founder of Shanghai Tu Chain, said that auction house Christie's auctioned a purely digital artwork created by writer Beeple online in March last year, "Every Day: 500 Days", which was finally sold for 69.346 million US dollars. This auction has also brought the NFT digital collection into the public eye.

The NFT art industry is not a new term for Xuhui District. Many attempts since last year have initially formed an ecological attraction in Xuhui District.

For example, in May last year, Yijiu held Shanghai's first NFT crypto digital art exhibition "Impact in The Truth" at Tank 1 of the West Bund Oil Tank Art Park; on January 1 this year, as a continuation of the Auction of Shanghai International Art Exchange Month, Jiahe Auction held a special auction on the blockchain and digital art of "Digital Symbiosis", which included 87 blockbuster works from 76 digital artists around the world...

Xuhui District seized the new NFT track, known as the "plateau construction peak". Jin Jianhong, deputy secretary of the party group and deputy director of the Xuhui District Culture and Tourism Bureau, revealed the deep password: in 2021, the total revenue of the cultural industry in the district exceeded 200 billion yuan, ranking first in the city for three consecutive years.

Artificial intelligence empowers technology and art. In the first three quarters of 2021, the total output of the artificial intelligence industry exceeded 50 billion yuan, with a growth rate of more than 20%. A number of high-quality enterprises have gathered in the West Coast. For example, the "Vertical Small Silicon Valley" West Coast Zhita gathers top R&D institutions such as Pujiang Laboratory, Zhizhi Research Institute, and Shutu Research Institute, providing a solid technical foundation for the development of the NFT industry.

"It is necessary to fully release the advantages of the gathering of resources in xuhui district's 'culture, entertainment, business, tourism' and other scenarios, combined with the digital transformation of the city, and create a number of influential benchmarking applications with digital entertainment, online cultural tourism, virtual shopping and other industrial scenarios as the entry point." Jin Jianhong said.

Disseminate Oriental Aesthetics and Further Think About the "Industrial Chain"

With the blessing of the NFT, the spark of traditional culture and young audiences collided, which made Sun Rong, director of cooperation in the strategy department of Ant Group's digital technology business group, call out unexpectedly.

More and more cultural IP institutions are testing the waters of NFT artworks. Ant Whale Detective launched the treasure plan and joined hands with more than 30 museums to create more than 150 digital collections, such as "Dunhuang Feitian" and "Nine Colored Deer", which attracted the attention of more than 10 million young consumer groups.

"When traditional oriental aesthetics are combined with modern trend elements, the diversified and rich scenes allow more young people to accept and enter traditional culture." Sun Rong commented like this.

Zhang Jun believes that on the basis of a series of "maps", it is also necessary to further think about the "industrial chain", improve extensibility, interactivity and playability by enriching scenes, and link with the physical world. "Mutual empowerment with the traditional physical world, visual effects that cannot be produced in the real environment, and interactions with people, are completed by NFTs."

Du Zhenglin, head of Tencent's magic core market, also said that it is necessary to integrate physical space with virtual space - hoping to map cultural places, cultural activities and cultural life in the real world to the virtual world in the form of digital.

In a controlled environment, try to create an NFT "sandbox environment"

In the new round of layout of Xuhui District, it will strengthen exchanges and cooperation with the pioneers of the NFT art industry, explore the establishment of an industrial development ecological alliance, and create an NFT art industry agglomeration area and ecosystem.

There is still uncertainty on the new track. Many enterprises have proposed: how to do a good job in supervision in the secondary market? NFT artworks are in the initial stage of industrial formation, can there be a unified industry standard?

The relevant leaders of Xuhui District also stated on the spot that they will try to create an NFT "sandbox environment" with the West Bank as the core area and in a controllable physical and policy environment through the first trial of the business format.

In addition, we will also invite resourceful and influential NFT ecological enterprises to settle in, through closed-loop management and small-scale trials, gradually explore the boundaries of trading mechanisms, and explore the industry autonomy model of "product + scene + industry incubation"; support enterprises to create NFT industry alliances or associations, gradually form trading mechanism boundaries through small-scale trials, promote the establishment of industry standards for NFT artworks, and standardize industry development.

At the same time, it will also build the bottom line of industry safety. In view of the gaps in laws and regulations and industry rules in the current development stage of NFT, we actively cooperate with the Municipal Bureau of Culture and Tourism, the Municipal Market Supervision Bureau, the Municipal Financial Office, the Shanghai Securities Regulatory Bureau, the Municipal Public Security Bureau and other departments to implement bottom-line management of the initial risk points of NFT artworks, cooperate with industry authorities to carry out regulatory research, and gradually build and improve the regulatory framework.

Author: Wang Wanyi

Edit: Zhou Chen

Editor-in-Charge: Liu Liyuan

*Wenhui exclusive manuscript, please indicate the source when reprinting.