People In Shanghai Use NFTs To Skirt Censorship And Record Harsh COVID-19 Lockdown Experiences

Shanghai's residents are preserving memories of their strict COVID-19 lockdown by minting videos, photos, and artworks as NFTs (non fungible tokens) while skirting Chinese censors, according to a Reuters report. 

What Happened: The global financial hub’s 25 million residents, who have not been able to leave their homes for weeks, chose to unleash their frustration online by venting about hostile lockdown curbs, food shortages, and no medical treatment. 

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While some are outraging on social media, others have chosen NFT marketplaces to mint content and buy or sell it using cryptocurrencies like Ethereum ETH/USD.

Recently, on social media, Shanghai netizens battled against censors overnight to share a short video entitled "The Voice of April" — a montage of voices recorded during the latest round of curbs.

According to Reuters, as of Monday, 786 different items related to the video can be found on NFT marketplaces like OpenSea, alongside hundreds of other similar assets.

The COVID-19 outbreak in Shanghai, which began to mount in March, has been the worst outbreak for the country ever since the early months of the pandemic in 2020. Meanwhile, China tightened restrictions in its capital Beijing as the city became the second virus hub after Shanghai.

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