Digital mooncakes smack of risks

Mooncakes are all over the place in the run-up to the Mid-Autumn Festival. They are nice things to gift to friends. However, some mooncakes are priced unusually high at 50,000 yuan ($7,188) a piece. Online shopping portals claim they are "zero-sugar, zero-calorie and zero-fat", which is true. For these are not real objects, but just a string of data. Welcome to the age of "digital mooncakes".

Mooncakes going digital is a good thing, as it means the younger generation can now have a better understanding of a traditional festival. And the Non-Fungible Token technology gives each digital mooncake its unique identity.

However, the extremely high price makes the digital mooncake something for speculation. Those buying it might not include it in their set of collections, but instead keep them aside while waiting for the right moment to sell it. If the trend catches on, it would make the digital mooncakes a Ponzi scheme.