China’s digital collectibles hold ground amid global cryptocurrency rout, indicating resilience among the country’s investors

Digital collectibles, China’s version of non-fungible tokens (NFTs), turned in a robust performance last week in the face of a global cryptocurrency and NFT market slump, indicating resilience among Chinese investors for the blockchain-based speculative assets.

A range of digital collectibles listed on Chinese NFT marketplaces saw major gains in their market value on Friday, with many items from popular collections trading at prices 20 per cent higher than the previous day, according to data posted by Chinese NFT price tracking site NFTshipan.

The highest sale price from a collection named Elf Baby, for example, touched 8,000 yuan (US$1,177) on Friday, a 20 per cent gain from its previous high of 6,666 yuan (US$981) on Thursday last week. Kung fu Cat, another digital collectible collection, saw items sold above 2,200 yuan (US$323) on Saturday, compared with levels around 700 yuan (US$103) the week before.

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iBox, a Chinese NFT marketplace with links to cryptocurrency exchange Huobi, was at one point on Saturday the top trending search term on social media platform Weibo.

And the term digital collectibles, or shucang in Chinese, gained nearly 500 per cent on WeChat Index, a mini program operated by Tencent Holdings’ WeChat that tracks keyword popularity within the super app.

The increased interest in digital collectibles in China came amid an extremely volatile week for cryptocurrencies even by its own standards, with more than US$200 billion of market value wiped off popular tokens, driven primarily by the collapse of Luna, a cryptocurrency operated in conjunction with the TerraUSD stablecoin.

Popular NFT collections, such as Bored Ape Yacht Club, also saw a drop in average sale prices.