Baidu Japan, the subsidiary of China’s largest search engine, has partnered with local firms on a Japanese non-fungible token (NFT) venture SimejiWEB3 and an associated community, CryptoSemeji. The NFTs and a future game are based around the popular Simeji emoji app. A key partner in the initiative is Japanese game developer ITI with whom Baidu says it will work on web3-related business.
The NFTs will be released on the public Ethereum blockchain.
It’s widely known that cryptocurrency is banned in China, and the Chinese government has frowned on speculation around non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Hence in July, BigTechs Ant, Tencent, JD, Baidu, and others signed up for a voluntary code of practice on NFTs in China, preventing their re-sale and other restrictions. They also refer to NFTs as “digital collectibles.” More recently, Tencent has withdrawn from the sector entirely.
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