The WeChat communications system, owned by Chinese tech giant Tencent, has banned secondary trading of NFTs and has also announced “penalties” for accounts associated with cryptocurrency trading. Reported by the South China Morning Post.

Bans and restrictions threaten users who trade cryptocurrencies or give advice on such transactions.

Tencent also aims to “fix accounts” if they are caught providing services or content for secondary trading of “digital collectibles”. The functionality of such accounts can be limited or even completely blocked.

Such measures are likely related to the negative attitude of the Chinese authorities towards cryptocurrencies and NFTs. In April, Chinese regulators urged companies to refrain from interacting with non-tradable tokens.

Recall that in 2021, Tencent and another Chinese tech giant Ant Group changed the term NFT to “digital collectibles”. Other platforms have also distanced themselves from the definition of “free tokens”.

Tencent explained at the time that the changes reflected the company’s commitment to compliance.

Chinese officials said in December that metaverses and NFTs could be bubbles, Ponzi schemes or other financial scams.

In March 2022, Ant Group and Tencent-owned NFT marketplaces updated their user agreements due to a lack of regulatory clarity. As a result, WeChat deleted a number of platforms’ accounts.

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