The latest big names to jump into the NFT scene are Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba and American software firm Salesforce.
The cloud computing division of e-commerce giant Alibaba Group has launched new services for NFT platforms based outside of mainland China.
The features Alibaba Cloud will provide include web hosting, digital marketing, and content delivery, according to reports in the SCMP (owned by Alibaba) on June 9.
According to an Alibaba spokeswoman, NFT and Metaverse services are now listed on Alibaba Cloud’s international website. The company recently launched Metaverse-related products, including remote 3D rendering, data analytics, artificial intelligence, and blockchain-as-a-service (BaaS).
Alibaba Cloud is trying to forge a path into an international market that Amazon Web Services heavily dominate. However, on the mainland, Alibaba Cloud commands a market-dominant 37% revenue share of China’s $27.4 billion cloud infrastructure services sector.
NFTs are a legal grey area in China, a country that has already criminalized crypto mining and trading. The firm tweeted the NFT announcement on June 8, but it has since been deleted. There was also no apparent press release that could suggest pressure from the Beijing regime had been applied.