NFT project blocks Chinese Twitter comments citing the need for ‘North American expansion’

NFT artist SHHAN previously told users to “switch to English” in the community chat, which went largely unfollowed.

According to a Twitter post dated Dec. 11, SHHAN, creator of the black cats nonfungible tokens (NFT) collection Mimic Shhans, explained to users why he was blocking posts on community social pages written in the Chinese language. The move came after users condemned the new measures as discriminatory. According to SHHAN, who is based in South Korea, but created a Chinese post to specifically address the issue: 

“It is because I previously announced on Twitter and Discord that my team is trying to enter the North American market. Therefore, I recommended everyone to use English when responding to Twitter posts. Why do this? Because when I spoke with North American holders [of our NFTs], they told us comments on the Mimic Twitter page are almost exclusively in Chinese, so it was very hard for them to feel the culture of the Mimic community.”

SHHAN elaborated that he previously posted in the community Discord recommending users speak English but that “the vast majority of people did not appear to follow it.” The artist then reiterated that he saw the European and North American consumer markets as vital for the upcoming Shhan Metaverse dubbed “Shhanverse” and wished users “turned to the more internationalized English language to talk about the project.”

Launched in October, Mimic Shhans features “playful black cat” NFTs dressed in various costumes and is minted on the Ethereum blockchain. SHHAN revealed that the collection is very popular in China, with the vast majority of NFT holders based in the country. The project currently has 2,001 holders on OpenSea with 285 Ether (ETH) in volume traded since inception.