Wen | Lu Yingxi
Editor| Liu Yuqi
In one minute, the 6,000 digital collections were sold out.
"Three mobile phones are grabbed at the same time, accompanying running is the norm, grabbing is an accident."
In recent times, the popularity of digital collections can be called the "Maotai" of the hidden circle. However, as the digital collection becomes popular, dark thunder is also exploding.
On April 1, Jay Chou posted on Insgram that the boring ape NFT he held had been stolen by hackers, stating that "this is not an April Fool's Joke." It is reported that the value of the stolen NFTs exceeded 3 million yuan.
Screenshot of Jay Chou ins
Not only are stars being "targeted", ordinary investors are also being "cut".
Rush to buy and trade privately. Once, Zhou Yu was also a member of the "gold rush" army of digital collections. Before being deceived, Zhou Yu naively thought that he was only one step away from the dream of "sudden wealth", so he kept gambling on chips, from hundreds of pieces to tens of thousands of yuan, until the moment when the bubble burst, Zhou Yu knew that he had fallen into the trap woven by lies, and the hundreds of thousands of people who smashed into it finally hit the water, leaving only a ripple.
In November last year, under the introduction of a friend, Zhou Yu came into contact with the digital collection for the first time.
"He pulled me into a group, a community of platforms where a lot of digital collections were going to be released." Just stepped into the circle, Zhou Yu will snap up a limited number of digital collections every day in the platform, occasionally have a good hand to grab, change hands and sell them at a high price, Dunhuang famous paintings, minotaur horses, Buddha statues, unicorn beasts... Less than half a year into the circle, Zhou Yu has collected a lot of digital collections.
Unfortunately, the weather was unpredictable, and overnight, the public account was blocked and the platform disappeared.
The digital collections such as minotaur horses and Dunhuang famous paintings that had been sought with great efforts before turned into bubbles in an instant, and what made Zhou Yu collapse the most was that there was no way to cry.
Since the digital collection is a "new thing" that has only appeared in China in the past two years, there is still a gap in the supervision of the market. Zhou Yu sighed, "It is difficult to recover the money after being covered." But what is puzzling is that after understanding with many collectors, Light Cone Intelligence found that there is still a steady stream of people who want to share a piece of the pie every day.
And not only the number of people buying, but also the number of people selling is also increasing.
On March 30, Haidilao launched the same series of digital collections of Xiao hi dolls; on April 7, Starbucks CEO Howard Schutz announced that he would enter the NFT market by the end of 2022; on April 8, Luo Dayou launched digital vinyl; on the evening of April 10, Huang Zitao released a limited edition of Wangwanglong digital collection.
Whether it is the theft of Jay Chou's NFT a few days ago, or the entry of a large number of stars and enterprises today, digital collections are breaking the ice of the circle and moving towards the public's vision. However, the successive exposures of security problems cannot help but worry that in the gap period of market supervision, will there be more and more problems caused by the popularity of digital collections?
In the group chat of a digital collection, Light Cone Intelligence noticed the daily dialogue between the members and the group owner, and comments such as "only the group leader is the leader" and "following the group owner can make a lot of money, and getting rich is as simple as breathing" abounds.
The picture shows a screenshot of a digital collection group chat
So is this really the case? How deep is the water? Perhaps only those who are in it can understand. To this end, The Light Cone Intelligence chatted with several domestic digital Tibetan players, trying to restore the whole picture of the development behind the current digital collection.
What can be sold is NFTs, and what cannot be sold is PNG
As a concept derived from the framework of the metaverse, today, the storm of NFTs has swept the global market.
According to GoinGecko, the global NFT's market capitalization was only $317 million at the end of 2020. In 2021, the market value of NFTs will grow rapidly, and as of the first half of 2021, the market value of global NFTs will reach 12.725 billion US dollars.
However, although they are all blockchain-based digital assets, the biggest difference between domestic digital collections and foreign NFTs is whether they can be traded. NFTs rely on public chain issuance and can be freely traded, while digital collections are more understood as collectibles, which cannot be traded in China and cannot be purchased with virtual currency.
On Opensea, the world's largest NFT trading platform, bored ape BAYC NFT as the head representative, the market value exceeded 3.5 billion US dollars, and the floor price reached 106.9 ETH.
How can such a small picture sell for tens of millions of yuan? After talking to several NFT collectors, we have compiled three important values for the current digital collection:
1. Commercial value
"At first, NFTs were only hyped as small pictures, and then NFTs had more empowerment and began to expand culture and community consensus." As an overseas NFT veteran player, Xiao Tang also has a certain understanding of the operation of NFTs.
As a simple example, suppose you buy an NFT from Boring Ape BAYC, then you can commercialize it. Selling prints on clothes, developing games, or using them as a certified avatar for Twitter can all bring you value. BAYC can be said to be the earliest commercial operation of the NFT, but also the most successful.
2. The value of artwork
"The value of NFT lies in its scarcity and uniqueness, which is a virtual work of art." Entering the circle for a year, Xiaomi told us that most of the time, when she buys NFTs, she judges its value more from artistry and scarcity.
As a digital artwork, the biggest feature of NFT lies in its uniqueness. Even if it is the same image, the code behind it is different, non-reproducible, and the quantity is constant, which is unique to the owner of the NFT. Each limited edition sale also gives NFT a natural scarcity. Through the "limited edition" marketing method, consumers' desire to buy is aroused, and the value of NFTs is constantly hyped.
3. Social Pass
If you spend $50,000 to get to know Jay Chou, would you be willing? Although this sentence is a joke, it does reflect the current situation of entering the circle through digital collections.
Putting aside the hype value of the NFT, the sense of identity attached to the NFT is filtering out some heterogeneous groups for the formation of the circle, just like the blind box circle, the car friend circle, and the rice circle, the commodity is only a social medium, and the market is gradually understanding the social attributes of the NFT from a cultural point of view.
Baudrillard said in "Consumer Society" that the essence of consumer society lies in "the consumption of things to the consumption of symbols". For the consumption of NFTs, it is the satisfaction brought by symbols.
"My Weibo avatar is the NFT I bought, and good NFTs have now become status symbols." Don Jr. told us. In the digital cyberpunk world, avatars are increasingly becoming a person's identity in the social metaverse, whether it is interpersonal communication, group communication or mass communication, in the iteration of digital self-authentication, the identity constructed by the NFT is one of the important reasons for the explosion of the NFT at home and abroad.
But in any case, the NFT is only a conceptual asset that rises under the framework of the metaverse, unlike large assets such as oil, its value is originally based on the consensus of the public, if the public loses confidence in an IP or market, perhaps the NFT is likely to become the next "tulip bubble".
There is no legal secondary market, and digital collection scams are rife
That is, from the boring ape out of the circle, the wind of the NFT blew to the country.
"I started to contact the NFT in June last year, and at the beginning it was crypto punk and bayc that Caught fire, and then I learned that the NFT, I bought the NFT just to invest, 99.9% of people entered the market to invest." Xiao Tang told us that he is involved in foreign NFTs and domestic digital collections, but domestic direct transactions are not allowed, and it is more troublesome to operate.
According to Xiao Tang, if there is no open legal secondary trading market, then how can the domestic digital collection be circulated?
Search for "NFT" or "digital collection" on social software and you can see a huge number of NFT group chats. In these hundreds of people's community, in addition to the updated platform rush information, there are new transaction information sent out every moment. "A set of rare fantasy creations to be private", "Collect the 69 Chinese zodiac signs, 50 stars of the Wenbo", "Collect the whale to explore the digital collection, do not disturb the scammers"...
In the group announcement, it is also clearly written: the group can exchange transaction NFTs, the transaction is self-identified, and those who are deceived are not responsible.
In an NFT community of 500 people, we found Chang Xin, who is often active. Chang Xin told us that 99% of the people in this group came to make money, and they traded with each other and exchanged messages in the group.
"Since there is no standardized trading platform, you can only trade privately, but it is not safe and it is easy to be deceived." Chang Xin said.
As an NFT that has been pouring into the country for only a year, there is currently no clear regulatory mechanism. Light Cone Intelligence learned from network channels that head platforms such as Tencent's Phantom Core and Ali's Whale Probe are not open to secondary market transactions, and only have the function of transfer. As a result, most of the operations are carried out in the gray area, and group chats and second-hand trading platforms have become the best carriers for the gray industry of digital collections.
The picture shows a summary of some of the domestic digital collection trading platforms, from the public number: Daneng Cat NFT
In June last year, a platform Mini Program limited to the sale of "Dunhuang Feitian" and "Nine Color Deer" two payment code NFT skins, priced at 9.9 yuan, each limited to 8,000 copies, was quickly robbed. Subsequently, these NFT skins soon appeared on idle fish, and were once marked with a high price of 1.5 million.
Whether it is a second-hand trading website or a transaction in a group chat, it is done through offline payment, and once there is a transaction fraud and other events, this is not guaranteed for the speculators.
There is no relevant legal protection, but under the temptation of the myth of sudden wealth, there are still many cases of being trapped in the end.
On a social software, we found that a digital collection group owner cheated other players of more than 6 million yuan. The whole thing goes through very simply, hype. After the owner of the group bought a series of digital collections at a low price, he constantly used the publicity to speculate, raised the price, and then sold the digital collection himself, and the person who took over was set, and the digital collection that could not continue to circulate became a picture.
The picture shows a screenshot of a digital collection group chat
The secondary market is not standardized, and the platform is also "cutting leeks".
Stimulated by the market dividend, various digital collection platforms are mixed, several people engage in a public account, design a good h5 web page, and the plan to cut leeks begins.
"Not all those that are grabbed can be fried, some will be smashed, and every day there will be new digital collections on various platforms."
According to Chang Xin, some digital collection trading platforms in China use the PUGC or UGC model, most of which lack authoritative endorsements and the quality of content is uneven, but they still continue to release new collections and increase prices. Before it was circulated, the new collection began again, with a quantity of 10,000 copies, 60 yuan per copy, a large quantity, poor quality, and low liquidity. Just like a saying circulating in the circle: NFTs that can be sold, PNG that cannot be sold.
"I'm still waiting for the market to come, how can I stop without getting rich?" Asked about the judgment on the future of the market, Chang Xin admitted that although last year's big bull market has passed, it is still waiting for the opportunity. This may also be the true portrayal of the hearts of many domestic digital collectors at present.
However, in the absence of supervision and the uncertainty of the market, domestic digital collectors are struggling.
Savage growth with gray areas
"This circle is relatively new, now in a period of barbaric growth, the state's supervision of this piece belongs to a gray area, many technologies are ahead of the law, so this market is not standardized at present, is still in a bubble period." Kim Young-hwan, founder of Supernova, said.
Orthodox NFTs built on top of blockchain are different from the so-called "digital collections" in China. The core is that the domestic digital collection is still in the formal commodity stage, rather than a tokenization stage, and the financial attributes and community attributes are weak.
According to the understanding of Light Cone Intelligence and several domestic digital collection buyers, at present, most of the digital collection transactions focus more on the "drumming and passing flowers" in the form of commodities, and to a large extent, they have not departed from the web 2.0 e-commerce model. The platform will put the digital collection on the shelves, and then sell it to consumers, just limited to the sale and purchase of pictures, after the purchase of many rights and rules can not be realized, because there is no formal application scenario in China to empower NFTs.
At the same time, the huge differences in the NFT trading model at home and abroad have also led to the separation of the two markets. Taking the Dunhuang NFT issued by Ali as an example, users can only transfer gifts after 180 days of purchasing the collection, and cannot make secondary sales in the market, which has seriously affected the development of the NFT market.
"Whether it's a foreign NFT or a domestic digital collection, the market is built on a very unstable castle in the air." Kim Young-hwan told Light Cone Intelligence.
At the end of the day, NFT is a token that carries things that are too complex. Unlike crude oil, gold and other underlying objects in the traditional financial market, there are not many foreseeable factors or standards to measure the direction of its value change.
"Vulnerabilities are unavoidable in the early stages of any format." An investor said that the NFT is based on the underlying logic of blockchain technology, and at a time when the development of technology and supervision has not yet been synchronized, whether it is Yu Wenle or Jay Chou, any player interested in digital collections will face this risk.
Therefore, while technology is popular, laws are needed to fill the gaps. As Christians put it: In the age of technology worship, the crisis we face is not a violation of rules, but a vacuum without norms.
Despite its late start, the mainland's exploration of relevant regulatory policies has never stopped. As early as 2013, Chinese Minmin Bank jointly issued the "Notice on Preventing Bitcoin Risks" jointly issued by multiple departments, which was the first time that the state rectified the speculation of virtual assets. Since then, regulation of virtual assets has also been in action.
Until October 2021, the first self-regulatory convention for the NFT industry was "launched". Internet giants such as the National Copyright Exchange Center Alliance, the China Academy of Art, the Hangzhou Internet Notary Office in Zhejiang Province, and ant groups in the United Nations jointly issued the Self-Discipline Convention for the Digital Cultural and Creative Industry to resolutely resist the malicious speculation of digital cultural and creative products.
A few days ago, WeChat also closed a large number of digital collections of public accounts, according to incomplete statistics, the platforms involved are Art Meta Yuanyi, One Point Number, Guizang Meta Universe, Painting Life Meta, Yuanben Space, Shenda Digital Collection, One Meta, Zero Earth and Nuofang Body.
The picture shows that the public account of a bit of Tibet is blocked
"I hope that the state can rectify the non-compliant platform and severely crack down on those who maliciously speculate." Chang Xin told Guang cone intelligence that for many domestic digital collectors, only by strengthening market supervision can they truly have a "sense of security".
Tencent's tightening of the management of the digital collection public account may only be a signal, but whether it is the construction of the NFT ecology or the improvement of relevant laws and regulations, there is still a long way to go.
end
As McLuhan puts it: We stare in the rearview mirror at the present, backwards into the future.
From the rearview mirror, we cannot see the whole picture of the future, but we can understand the present by referring to the existing cognition of the past, and continue to make progress in the examination of the past. This is true in the face of any new technology.
Perhaps in the future, NFT will become a new social medium, but before that, it is imperative to clarify the market and strengthen supervision.