Alibaba’s latest NFT launch features non-tradeable badges celebrating four Winter Olympics sports

Alibaba Group Holding has launched four non-fungible tokens (NFTs) featuring sports at the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics, expanding the offerings available in China’s closed, non-tradeable NFT world.

The virtual badges, in traditional Chinese ink painting style, depict speed skating, aerial freestyle skiing, slopestyle and figure skating. They will be available on Alibaba’s Taobao and Tmall online marketplaces from February 5 to 20, the closing date of the winter games.

The four badges, each having 8,888 copies, will be issued on four different dates during the period, but are only available to Alibaba’s 88Vip paid members, who can purchase using shopping credits and 0.01 yuan (0.16 US cents). The first NFT, featuring a speed skater leaning to make a turn, was sold out soon after it was issued on Saturday.

Alibaba, which has been an Olympic partner since 2017, owns the South China Morning Post.

To differentiate them from NFTs, which are transacted using cryptocurrencies – an asset banned by Beijing – the Alibaba offerings are called “digital collectibles”, a term also used by NFTs issued by other Chinese tech giants such as Tencent Holdings and JD.com.

Alibaba’s Winter Olympics digital collectibles are only available to mainland Chinese residents over the age of 14 years, and owners are “barred from using the digital collectibles for any commercial purpose”, according to the company.

NFTs, digital assets built on the blockchain, are attracting the attention of an increasing number of Chinese companies. Ant Group, the fintech affiliate of Alibaba, and social media and gaming giant Tencent, were the first tech giants to embrace NFTs, launching dozens of products since last summer. JD.com and Baidu followed with their own digital collectibles.