HONG KONG听–听厂丑补苍驳丑补颈听谤别蝉颈诲别苍迟蝉听are听迟耻谤苍ing to the blockchain to preserve memories of the city’s month-long听颁翱痴滨顿-19听濒辞肠办诲辞飞苍, minting videos, photos and artworks capturing their ordeal as non-fungible tokens to ensure they can be shared and avoid deletion.
Unable to leave their homes for weeks at a time, many of the city’s 25 million聽谤别蝉颈诲别苍迟蝉听have been unleashing their frustrations online, venting about draconian听濒辞肠办诲辞飞苍聽curbs and difficulties procuring food, and sharing stories of hardship, such as patients unable to get medical treatment.
That has intensified the cat-and-mouse game with Chinese censors, which have vowed to step up policing of the internet and group chats to prevent what they describe as rumors and efforts to stoke discord over seething public frustration with the听濒辞肠办诲辞飞苍.
While some people have defiantly continued reposting such content, others are听迟耻谤苍ing to NFT marketplaces like the world’s largest, OpenSea, where users can mint content and buy or sell it using cryptocurrencies, attracted in part by the fact that data听谤别肠辞谤诲ed on the blockchain is unerasable.
The height of听厂丑补苍驳丑补颈‘s听濒辞肠办诲辞飞苍聽minting moment is rooted in April 22, when netizens battled censors overnight to share a six-minute video entitled “The Voice of April”, a montage of voices听谤别肠辞谤诲ed over the course of the聽厂丑补苍驳丑补颈听辞耻迟产谤别补办.听
As of Monday, 786 different items related to the video can be found on OpenSea, alongside hundreds of other听狈贵罢蝉听related to the听濒辞肠办诲辞飞苍聽in听厂丑补苍驳丑补颈.
On April 23, a Chinese Twitter user with the handle imFong said in a widely retweeted post, “I have minted the ‘Voice of April’ video into an NFT and have frozen its metadata. This video will exist forever on the IPFS,” referring to the interplanetary file system, a type of distributed network.
Like most major foreign social media and news platforms, Twitter is blocked in China, although聽谤别蝉颈诲别苍迟蝉听can access it using VPNs.
A听厂丑补苍驳丑补颈-based programmer told Reuters that he was among those in the city who viewed their effort to keep the video alive as part of a “people鈥檚 rebellion鈥.
He has himself minted an NFT based on a screenshot of听厂丑补苍驳丑补颈鈥檚听颁翱痴滨顿聽濒辞肠办诲辞飞苍听map, showing how most of the city has been sealed off from the outside world.
“Being stuck at home because of the outbreak leaves me a lot of time,” he said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
Other聽厂丑补苍驳丑补颈听content available on OpenSea as听狈贵罢蝉听for sale includes Weibo posts containing complaints about the curbs, images from inside quarantine centers, and works of art inspired by life under听濒辞肠办诲辞飞苍.
Simon Fong, a 49-year-old freelance designer from Malaysia who has been living in聽厂丑补苍驳丑补颈听for nine years, began creating satirical illustrations on life under听濒辞肠办诲辞飞苍聽in the style of Mao-era propaganda posters.
He started minting them into听狈贵罢蝉, having dabbled in the market since late last year, and has now managed to sell nine of his works for an average price of 0.1 ether ($290)
His pieces include scenes dramatizing PCR testing, as well as听谤别蝉颈诲别苍迟蝉‘ demands for government rations.
“I chose the Mao-era propaganda style for these pieces because some people are saying that the听濒辞肠办诲辞飞苍聽situation is taking聽厂丑补苍驳丑补颈听backward,” Fong said.
While China has banned cryptocurrency trading, it sees the blockchain as a promising technology and听狈贵罢蝉听have been gaining traction in the country, embraced by state media outlets and even tech companies including Ant Group and Tencent Holdings.
The protracted听濒辞肠办诲辞飞苍聽in听厂丑补苍驳丑补颈, China’s financial hub, is party of Beijing’s controversial zero-颁翱痴滨顿听strategy, a policy which has growing聽.
The听颁翱痴滨顿聽outbreak in听厂丑补苍驳丑补颈, which began in March, has been China’s worst since the early months of the pandemic in 2020. Hundreds of thousands have been infected in the city. – Reuters
