Benzinga | Aug 17, 2021 06:18AM EDT

Alibaba Launches New NFT Marketplace: What You Need To Know

Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Limited (NYSE:BABA) has launched a new marketplace for non fungible tokens, or NFTs, where trademark holders can sell tokenized licenses to their intellectual property, the South China Morning Post reported.

What Happened: The new NFT marketplace, called "Blockchain Digital Copyright and Asset Trade," was launched on Alibaba's Auction platform.

NFTs launched via the platform will be issued through the "New Copyright Blockchain," a platform run by the Sichuan Blockchain Association Copyright Committee, as per the report.

According to SCMP, the NFT marketplace will allow writers, musicians, game developers and artists to sell the rights to their content via blockchain.

The marketplace already has several NFTs listed, which will start being auctioned next month. Each auction reportedly starts at RMB 100 ($15) and bidders must deposit RMB 500 (about $77) to participate in the auctions.

See Also: Dogecoin Creator Is Selling His '10 Commandments' For Meme Coin Community From 7 Years Ago As NFT

Why It Matters: The launch of the new NFT marketplace by Alibaba comes even as its own subsidiaries have already forayed into NFTs.

It was reported in June that 16,000 copies of NFTs representing two artworks were sold on Alibaba-backed Ant Group's payment platform Alipay within hours.

The South China Morning Post too launched its own NFT project named 'ARTIFACT' in July by offering historical moments reported by the publication from its archives on a blockchain.

Price Action: Alibaba Group shares closed 3.1% lower in Monday's trading at $182.71.

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