Non-fungible tokens of art, fungible tokens for gambling: the gallery and casino chronotope in the Chinese NFT scene, 2022–2023

Abstract

This paper explores the ontological politics in China's emerging NFT scene. Drawing on digital ethnography from 2022 to 2023, it analyzes how actors invoke competing spatiotemporal framings (‘chronotopes’) of NFTs from familiar institutional sites. Under the crypto ban, NFT companies legitimize the scene as a digital extension of the art market, drawing on middle-class imaginaries of the gallery. Through corporate discourse and mobile app design, they institutionalized the gallery framing as a mode of representation and economization. A widespread price slump in the summer of 2022 sparked metapragmatic discourse on social media. Influencers and users challenged the values presumed on NFT platforms and formulated contrasting chronotopes of speculative gaming, notably the framing of the scene as a casino rigged by bookies. Their increasing resonance among users effected a shift toward the understanding of NFTs as worthless gambling chips and a more speculative mode of engagement with the technology, pressuring NFT companies to incorporate the casino framing in their platform design. This paper emphasizes the significance of local meaning-makings (semiosis) of technologies and economies, as well as the ‘chronotope’ as a framework for understanding how cultural framings of technology emerge, predominate, and fall out of favor.