Digital collectibles are likely familiar to everyone. Before 2021, domestic players called them NFTs; after 2021, domestic players call them digital collectibles.
Rewinding to March 2021, Beeple's digital artwork sold for $69 million at Christie's auction house, allowing the global market to truly see the value of NFTs for the first time and making this narrative a new focal point beyond crypto assets.
This fervor quickly spread to China. Starting in the second half of 2021, major domestic companies successively entered the field to test the waters: Tencent's "Huanhe" launched in August 2021; the digital collectibles business under Ant Chain began advancing in 2021 and gradually formed the "Whalescan" brand; JD.com's "Lingxi" was introduced in late 2021. Subsequently, in the first half of 2022, a large number of small and medium-sized platforms rushed in, further accelerating the industry's expansion. According to industry statistics, by June 2022, the number of NFT/digital collectible-related platforms in China had increased approximately fivefold since the beginning of the year, with over 500 active platforms.
However, while the market was surging, the platform narrative was already showing signs of contraction. For instance, the term "NFT" was gradually replaced by "digital collectibles" in public communication, and secondary trading and financialization expressions began to be deliberately downplayed. This shift became more pronounced in the second half of 2022. Leading platforms like Tencent's Huanhe announced in August 2022 that they would stop issuing digital collectibles and initiate refund arrangements, leading the industry into a rapid clearing phase. A large number of platforms reliant on secondary premiums and speculative sentiment exited, and the first cycle of digital collectibles almost completed the switch from狂热 to contraction within two years.
Today, looking back at domestic digital collectibles, the market has run one cycle and also undergone a clearing round. The vast majority of models that "relied on trading to tell stories" have been proven unviable, with even limited space to continue existing. Logically, such a赛道似乎已经结束了.
But why does Portal Labs believe that digital collectibles are still a promising path for Web3 entrepreneurship in China? Read on.
Policy Space Still Exists
One core reason digital collectibles are still worth discussing in China is that policy has not negated them本身. What regulation真正压制 is the path of financial speculation under the name of digital collectibles. In other words, digital collectibles are not a一刀切封死的赛道 domestically, and a clear boundary has been drawn for them.
This boundary is very clear: no financialization, no securitization, no trading.
Since 2022, regulatory authorities have repeatedly issued risk warnings regarding NFT-related speculative risks. In April 2022, the National Internet Finance Association of China, the China Banking Association, and the Securities Association of China jointly issued an initiative explicitly opposing the financialization and securitization tendencies of NFTs and emphasizing the need to prevent risks such as secondary market speculation and illegal fundraising. This almost became the policy watershed for the domestic digital collectibles industry.
It is against this background that the concept of "digital collectibles" gradually replaced "NFT," becoming a more localized compliant expression. Platforms no longer emphasize asset trading but instead highlight the collection and cultural attributes of digital content. Many issuers also began主动回避 secondary circulation, downplay price narratives, and instead place digital collectibles into safer scenarios like cultural creativity, branding, and cultural tourism.
From policy signals, this "de-financialized form of digital assets" is not entirely without space. On the contrary, when digital collectibles are embedded in applications like cultural dissemination, copyright verification, and brand membership, they closer resemble a digital credential tool rather than an investment target. The reason many domestic digital collectibles projects can still exist is precisely because they have completed this positioning shift.
More realistically, China does not lack policy soil for the digital cultural industry. Whether it's the digitalization of cultural tourism or the upgrade of cultural consumption, the direction encouraged by regulation has always been the "content industry" and "digital creativity." Digital collectibles can only become a sustainable Web3 entrepreneurial path by returning to this framework.
Therefore, whether digital collectibles can be done in China does not depend on technology but on which line you stand on. Standing on the trading line, it is inevitably a high-pressure zone; but standing on the line of cultural content and brand operation, it may反而 become one of the few compliant and implementable Web3 entry points.
The Industry Has Completed Its Clearing
If policy drew the boundary, the market itself completed a more brutal筛选. The first cycle of digital collectibles domestically was not a "gradual cooling down" but a rapid clearing. The platform expansion from 2021 to 2022 was almost explosive, but the subsequent contraction was equally swift. A large number of projects reliant on secondary premiums, speculative sentiment, and gray trading had almost no space left under the dual pressure of regulatory crackdowns and market receding.
After 2022, the industry's structure changed significantly. The once most crowded part—issuance即炒作, collectibles即资产—was basically cleared out. The platforms and projects that remained反而 showed more consistent characteristic: weak trading, heavy on content; weak finance, heavy on operation. They no longer tried to replicate the free circulation logic of the overseas NFT market but收敛 digital collectibles into a form of digital cultural product and brand tool.
This signifies an important change: the "entrepreneurial difficulty" for digital collectibles domestically has shifted from "whether it can be issued" to "whether it can be operated." In the first cycle, the core capability of many teams was packaging, issuance, and creating scarcity. But after the clearing, the market no longer rewards this model. Those that can truly stay are often platforms with content supply, channel cooperation, and long-term operation capabilities.
Here, "content supply" does not mean随便做一张图 but whether one can持续拿到 copyright, IP, and culturally valuable content sources. For example, platforms like theone.art are essentially closer to digital art e-commerce: they obtain授权作品 through cooperation with artists and copyright holders, then conduct limited issuance and serialized operation围绕作品. The platform sells not "on-chain assets" but a digital content system with provenance, copyright, and持续供给.
所谓"渠道合作" is not simple community dissemination but whether digital collectibles can be embedded into real consumption scenarios. Many more sustainable practices domestically often occur within cultural institutions and brand systems. For instance, museums, scenic spots cooperating with platforms to issue cultural relic-themed digital collectibles本质上 treat digital collectibles as part of cultural dissemination and commemorative consumption, not a freely tradable标的. Similarly, the logic behind Starbucks and other brands promoting NFT membership systems overseas also shows that the real value entry point for digital collectibles often comes from membership rights and consumption ecology, not secondary market pricing.
And "long-term operation capability" is the core分水岭 for domestic digital collectibles platforms. Issuance is just the beginning; the platform truly needs to answer: why should users stay? How are rights realized? How can activities be sustained? Many projects fail not because they cannot be sold but because there is no next step after the sale; the collectible becomes a static image, and users naturally churn. For example, "Lingjing·People's Art Gallery" under People's Daily emphasizes the cultural dissemination attribute of digital collectibles, forming a continuous content rhythm through artist cooperation, thematic curation, and content栏目化发行, rather than one-time sales. Similarly, Xinhua News Agency has launched digital collectible plans combined with public welfare, embedding digital collectibles into public narratives and brand activities, making them more like long-term cultural projects而非交易资产. Looking further at cultural tourism scenarios, the reason some digital collectible practices by museums and scenic spots can continue lies not in "price" but in "scenario." They often bind digital collectibles with exhibitions, souvenir tickets, and offline activities, allowing users to hold not just an image but a record of cultural participation. The operation logic of such projects is closer to cultural creative products than crypto assets.
Precisely because of this, the business闭环 of platforms still operating today often resembles "content consumption platforms" more than "asset trading markets": obtaining content through IP cooperation, completing sales through limited issuance, and maintaining user retention through membership activities and rights design, rather than relying on secondary market price increases. This model sounds "less Web3," but it is恰恰 why it can exist long-term domestically. The path that digital collectibles can truly take in China is not financialization narrative but platform operation.
Real Demand Exists on the Demand Side
Is there real demand for digital collectibles? If it is only a concept that "compliantly exists" but no one is willing to pay for it, then it still cannot become a Web3 entrepreneurial path.
The answer is yes. Especially in the cultural and cultural tourism fields.
As a historical and cultural great nation spanning 5000 years, China is least short of content assets. However, museums, scenic spots, and local cultural tourism projects have long faced the same problem: how can cultural content become products that can be disseminated, consumed, and沉淀? Digital collectibles刚好 provide a new form of digital souvenir. It can carry exhibition extensions and become part of cultural tourism consumption. For many institutions, this model is lighter, easier to disseminate, and more in line with the digital consumption habits of young users than traditional cultural creativity.
Besides, the real commercial opportunity for digital collectibles domestically largely comes from the "user operation demand" from the brand side. Consumer brands have always been searching for new membership carriers: they need both a sense of identity and scarcity, and must be operable long-term. The role of digital collectibles here is more like a digital membership credential than a single-sale image product. Brands do not lack budgets; they lack a sustainable membership tool. If digital collectibles can bind points, activities, and rights redemption, they can enter the brand's operation system instead of remaining isolated on-chain islands.
More importantly, this type of demand has a very clear B2B attribute. Cultural institutions need digital content solutions; brands need membership and marketing tools; platforms provide issuance, rights confirmation, operation, and technical services. The entire chain's payment logic comes from the content industry and consumption industry, not from speculative funds in the secondary market.
This is also the most crucial practical significance of digital collectibles in the Chinese context: its payer is not "investors" but "content parties" and "brand parties." Its value does not lie in price appreciation but in whether it can become the digital infrastructure for cultural consumption and brand operation.
The Biggest Obstacle: User Cognition Still Stuck in "Financial Speculation"
Even though policy space exists and demand is real, digital collectibles domestically still face an unavoidable obstacle: user cognition.
Digital collectibles, or the entire Web3, have left too heavy a "historical burden" in China. The market expansion from 2021 to 2022 was essentially not a "cultural digitalization experiment" but more like an asset speculation disguised with content. A large number of users first contacted digital collectibles not because they were bound to cultural rights or membership身份 but because "will it rise?" This path, while bringing heat in the short term, almost predetermined the subsequent trust collapse.
Therefore, the biggest difficulty for digital collectibles today is that many people still understand them as "NFTs," seeing them as a castrated speculative product rather than a new digital credential tool. This cognitive misalignment directly affects project operation: users are unwilling to pay for content, unwilling to stay for rights, only caring about whether there is a secondary market and升值空间. And once digital collectibles are regarded by users as "speculative targets," brands find it hard to持续投入 because it will quickly slide into监管敏感区 and deviate from the original intention of brand operation.
A more realistic problem is that the value endowment mechanism for digital collectibles has not yet been fully established domestically. Many projects remain at the "issuance即结束" stage: issue an image, conduct a sale, complete a marketing campaign, and then there is no next step. What users get is just a static asset that cannot be traded, has no rights realization, and offers no reason for持续参与. Naturally, users return to the most primitive judgment: if it doesn't appreciate, what is it worth? Why should I buy it?
This is also the realistic分水岭 that digital collectibles entrepreneurs must face. In the first cycle, everyone drove transactions with emotion and scarcity; in the second cycle, those that can truly survive can only redefine value through rights structures, scenario binding, and long-term operation.
The Dual Challenges of Membership Systems and On-Chain Transparency
The problem on the brand side is more realistic: can digital collectibles truly enter long-term operation systems?
Over the past few years, many consumer brands domestically and abroad have tried NFTs or digital collectibles. Starbucks explored NFT-based membership systems; luxury brands have done digital collectible co-branded issuances; many domestic brands also tested the waters at marketing nodes. But a common phenomenon is: after issuing the first phase, many brands have no follow-up actions. Because they got stuck at "how to use it after issuance."
What brands真正需要 is membership tools. The core of a membership system is not issuance but operation: levels, rights, points, repurchases, activity outreach. These must form a闭环. But in many projects, digital collectibles are just one-time souvenirs, lacking sustained rights design. Brands find it hard to answer users a key question: what does holding it actually mean? Beyond "I bought it," what long-term value can it bring?
When digital collectibles cannot be embedded into membership systems, they can only remain at the level of marketing gimmicks. Issuing once can create话题, but issuing a second time becomes a repetitive action, even arousing user doubts. This is also why many brands chose to stop after尝试, because it lacks a sustainable operation抓手.
A deeper concern comes from the commercial sensitivity brought by on-chain transparency.
In the Web3 context, on-chain transparency is an advantage because it is verifiable and traceable. But in the brand operation context, on-chain transparency反而 may become a burden. Membership structures, user behaviors, consumption preferences一旦沉淀 on-chain in the form of public addresses mean competitors might infer the brand's user profiles and operation strategies. For traditional brands, this "publicized membership system" is not inherently safe.
Therefore, for digital collectibles to become long-term tools, the key is to help brands truly embed digital collectibles into membership systems and provide controllable tools within compliance and privacy boundaries.
What Is the Web3 Entrepreneurial Entry Point for Digital Collectibles?
In summary, the truly viable Web3 entrepreneurial entry point for digital collectibles domestically should be providing sustainable infrastructure and service capabilities围绕 content, brands, and scenarios.
The first entry point is digital issuance services for cultural tourism and cultural content.
China's cultural assets are extremely rich, but cultural institutions lack digital product capabilities. The value of digital collectibles here is not financialized trading but serving as digital souvenirs, cultural dissemination carriers, and content consumption products. Entrepreneurial teams that can provide a complete set of tools from copyright verification, content packaging to issuance operation can find stable demand in the long-term trend of cultural tourism digitalization.
The second entry point is the digital credentialization of brand membership systems.
What brands truly lack is not "NFT gimmicks" but sustainable membership operation tools. If digital collectibles can bind points, activities, levels, and rights redemption, they can become a new membership identity carrier. The opportunity for entrepreneurial teams lies in helping brands design rights structures and providing controllable digital credential systems, not simply selling images.
The third entry point is enterprise-level digital collectibles infrastructure on consortium chains or permissioned chains.
The transparency of public chains is not inherently suitable in the domestic brand context. Many enterprises need digital credential systems that are auditable, traceable, but also controllable and isolatable. This means entrepreneurial teams can provide underlying capabilities in the direction of "compliant on-chain credentials": permission management, privacy isolation, user data protection, and integration with existing CRM systems.
The fourth entry point is operation service providers for digital collectibles.
After the clearing, platform competition is no longer "who can issue" but "who can operate." Many cultural institutions and brands do not lack issuance channels; they lack operation methodology: how to do serialized content, how to design rights, how to retain users, how to turn digital collectibles into long-term projects. Entrepreneurial teams can完全 exist in the form of service providers, obtaining cash flow through project-based and long-term service fees, rather than taking the high-risk assetization path.
Digital Collectibles Entrepreneurship Action List
The entrepreneurial opportunity for digital collectibles in China has not ended; it has just shifted its core to operation and embedding. This path will not return to the狂热 of 2021 and is unlikely to produce "quick money effects." But with clear policy boundaries and real demand on the demand side, it反而 may become one of the few Web3 entrepreneurial entry points that remain within the compliant space and can generate long-term cash flow.
If you consider digital collectibles as a Web3 entrepreneurial path in China, then beforehand, you and your team need to answer several very realistic questions:
First, where does your content come from? Is there a stable supply of copyright and IP?
Second, who is your payer? Cultural institutions or brand budgets?
Third, how is your product operated? How are rights realized after issuance?
Fourth, where is your compliance boundary? Have you completely avoided trading and financialization?
Fifth, can you provide long-term services, not just one-time issuance?
Digital collectibles are not a quick-money赛道. On the contrary, if you truly want to treat it as an entrepreneurial path, the above difficulties must be faced head-on and拆解解决 item by item. So, although this path确实可能是 one of the few directions that can legally survive in China's Web3, it is not easy, nor is it suitable for entering with the expectation of "trying once to achieve volume." You need to be more cautious and more long-termist. You need to treat it as a content and operation business that requires deep cultivation, not a market opportunity that can be arbitraged through emotion and cycles.
