Shanghai citizens created NFTs to document the reality of COVID restriction

The Chinese government blocked social content related to the current restriction in the city. 

Residents of Shanghai, China’s largest city with a population of more than 25 million people, began using blockchain in order to preserve and share files capturing memories of the city’s month-long COVID-19 lockdown minting videos, photos and artworks.

The city became the worst COVID infection zone after an outbreak in March this year. According to some reports, hundreds of thousands of residents have been infected and, as part of measures to contain the virus people have been ordered to stay home. 

In April, BBC News reported that new measures implemented by the government included people infected placing electronic alarms on the doors of homes , while residents of the area needs to be evacuated with the purpose to disinfect their homes. Evacuees were forced to move temporarily and leave their pets at home.

As expected in this complicated context, many of the residents disagree with the severe restrictions and measures that in addition to inconveniencing the residents, have made it difficult for them to obtain food and medical treatment.

The Chinese government decided to block social content (images and videos) related to the shutdown on April 22, but residents decided to use the blockchain to post content that cannot be deleted.

The day after this media was published, a Shanghai citizen with the username ImFong decided to «mint» an NFT of a video and place it on the OpenSea marketplace. Since then, many have followed suit, minting non-fungible tokens related to the Shanghai shutdown: anti-propaganda satires , views of the deserted city, social conversations and even scenes from everyday life.

The South China Morning Star newspaper said that two days after ImFong published the NFT, there were already 786 articles on the Shanghai platform. Regarding this phenomenon, many seem to label it as a sign of free speech. Most of these NFTs are not priced at a high value, however, they are a way to preserve information and evidence of the reality of Shanghai’s population.