WeChat, a Chinese social media platform, has suspended certain accounts linked to NFTs

To avoid speculation on non-fungible tokens (NFTs), China’s popular WeChat messaging platform has blocked certain accounts tied to digital assets.

According to the site, it has “rectified” accounts that it discovered were supporting NFT market speculation, which can contribute to driving up prices.

Although cryptocurrency trading was banned last year, there are no rules against NFTs in China.

NFTs, like any other type of property, can be bought and sold in China.

As a result, they’ve been dubbed the “digital equivalent of collectables.” They do not, however, have a physical form of their own, and experts have warned about market hazards.

WeChat responded on Thursday to local media reports that the accounts had been suspended.

The platform claimed to have “recently standardised and rectified public accounts and modest programmes for speculation and secondary sales of digital collections,” the platform claimed.

According to the statement, “This was done following relevant national rules to avoid the risk of speculation in virtual currency transactions.”

Tencent, the Chinese internet behemoth that owns WeChat, has declined to comment.

The action comes at a time when the Chinese government is closely scrutinising the country’s technological sector.

Since last year, the industry has been targeted by the government, with crackdowns on e-commerce enterprises, online financial services, social media platforms, gaming companies, cloud computing providers, ride-hailing apps, and cryptocurrency miners and exchanges among the targets.

Trading in NFTs is still permitted in China, despite all of the prohibitions. On the other hand, digital assets are based on Beijing-approved technology.

Buyers must purchase NFTs in the local currency, the yuan, rather than cryptocurrencies, which are prohibited under the rules.

The “one-of-a-kind assets” were sold for tens of thousands of dollars, if not millions of dollars.