United Nations approve first-ever NFT standard initiative led by Chinese Tencent
China’s Tencent has gained approval from the United Nations for leading a project to explore the creation of a standard technical and security framework for non-fungible tokens (NFTs).
According to Chinese local media reports, the project is being dubbed a “technical framework for DLT-based digital collection services” and would be the first-ever UN-approved standards initiative for NFTs.
The United Nations agency for information and communication technologies, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), is the wing that has approved the project and is expected to complete an initial draft by the last week of 2022, reported South China Morning Post.
At present, any recommendations that are advised by the ITU can only become mandatory and enforceable when nations have adopted them as law.
Tencent released an official statement on February 8 stating that the international standard is aimed at specifying the technical architecture, functional requirements, technical flows, and security requirements for blockchain-based digital collectibles.”
The release also said that this could help drive a consensus as well as a common understanding globally on the formation of a technical framework for digital collection services.
The Chinese government, meanwhile, is in the process of developing its own state-backed Blockchain Services Network (BSN), which would help the authorities in supporting the deployment of NFT projects that are unrelated to cryptocurrency, which it had once again banned in September 2021.
Tencent has said it would collaborate with a number of other companies on the initiative, that include The Chinese Academy of Information and Communications Technology, Alibaba’s affiliate Ant Group, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, and Zhejiang Lab.
In the Chinese Mainland, NFTs are often referred to as “digital collectibles” for avoiding criticism from its anti-crypto media and government. For the same reason, Chinese NFT-creators usually tend to avoid public or decentralized blockchains like Ethereum or Solana, and are opting to create their collectibles on permissioned blockchains.
Although the country has been very apprehensive of crypto, it is definitely keen on exploring potential use cases for blockchain technology.
In the last month, China had announced the commencement of a national plan in order to expedite blockchain development and innovation across key areas such as energy, manufacturing, government data sharing and services, inspection taxation, criminal trials, law enforcement, and cross-border finance.
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