Photo taken on Feb. 4, 2022 shows a cauldron holding the Olympic flame during the opening ceremony of the Beijing 2022 Olympic Winter Games.(Photo: Xinhua)

Several Chinese business partners of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games have launched non-fungible token (NFT) collections, non-interchangeable digital assets stored on a blockchain, during the Games, a move experts say will boost the popularity of the industry. 

Alibaba Group, worldwide partner of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), officially released a limited NFT collection of cloud emblems of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games on Saturday.

The collection features four sports events - short track speed skating, figure skating, freestyle skiing, and snowboard slopestyle. The collections interweave Chinese traditional elements such as ink painting and the yin and yang in their designs. Each of the four designs is limited to 8,888 pieces.

"Each piece has a unique sequence. It is traceable and can be permanently preserved with high collection value. It is hoped the collection can spark people's curiosity to explore the virtual world," Alibaba Group said in a statement sent to the Global Times on Sunday.

ANTA, a brand that is an official partner of the Chinese Olympic Committee, also released two NFT products regarding the Chinese delegation's clothes at the Beijing Winter Olympics on January 25. Each of the digital collections is limited to 500 pieces.

According to the brand, this is not only an innovative move for a Chinese sports brand to debut an NFT relevant to the Chinese national team, but also a continuous exploration of future consumer experience. 

There is no doubt that 2022 will be a boom year for NFTs as big institutions and auction houses have stepped into the market, experts said.

The nature of the NFT is a unique digital product based on blockchain technology to ensure its unique nature, and because of its uniqueness, it is a collectible and people would buy it and hold it for a very long time with value-added opportunities and artistic value, Liu Dingding, a Beijing-based independent analyst told the Global Times on Sunday.

NFT has gotten a boost in popularity as an important application of blockchain and important component of the metaverse, Liu said.

"It is also inseparable from the speculation of capital and institutional speculation, as well as the portfolios of some investors," Liu added.

Data from Dune Analytics showed that the largest NFT marketplace OpenSea, which usually accounts for more than 90 percent of the total NFT trading volume, saw its transaction volume on the Ethereum blockchain record its highest monthly volume in January.

However experts warned that there could be bubble in the industry.

"Although the NFT is a unique kind of digital art, its value is difficult to measure without a unified scale, which can cause a lot of speculation," Liu said.

Other challenges lie in whether art creators support the form of the NFT and whether it can avoid becoming a tool for money-laundering, Wang Zhantao, an independent analyst on web security, told the Global Times on Sunday.

"If such problems can be prevented, the blockchain anti-counterfeiting technology can solve the situation in the art market where good and bad are mixed together, and usher in a revival of the art market," Wang said.