China activists uses NFTs and IPFS storage to bypass censorship

Chinese activists are using NFTs and Matters, a content sharing platform built on the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS), to counter censorship amid the country wide COVID-19 lockdown, according to a Nov. 30 Forkast report. 

Similar to cloud storage, IPFS is a protocol and media file sharing peer-to-peer system in a distributed file system.

Following a fire that broke out in an apartment in Urumqi that resulted in 10 casualties, protests broke out across China, with people blaming the deaths on COVID lockdowns which allegedly prevented people from escaping the fire. 

The images taken of protests across China against its zero-COVID lockdown policies and the Communist Party are being widely shared on Matter.

Two NFT collections documenting the collection have also been listed on the OpenSea marketplace. The first, titled Silent Speech, is a collection of 137 NFTs featuring protestors, graffiti, and social media screenshots related to the protest. The other collection is titled ‘Blank Paper Movement,’ and features 24 illustrations of protestors holding blank pieces of paper to symbolize the suppression of free speech. 

 Photo: Getty