Alibaba executive vice-chairman says he likes crypto amid ban in China

Joe Tsai, the executive vice-chairman of e-commerce giant Alibaba, has come out to reveal that he likes crypto. Tsai, who is the owner of NBA team Brooklyn Nets, shared his love for the nascent asset class through a tweet earlier today, simply saying he likes crypto. In response, Binance founder and CEO Changpeng Zhao tweeted that he likes Joe.

Notably, Tsai professed his fondness for digital assets after China banned all crypto-related transactions in September. However, it is not clear what Tsai meant by crypto, seeing as he initially hinted at the idea of issuing fan tokens and non-fungible tokens (NFTs), among other activities to boost fan engagement with the Brooklyn Nets.

At the time, he said,

We in the NBA now have the potential for teams to issue fan tokens. It’s been discussed, hasn’t been approved but people in Europe have already been doing this with soccer teams in Europe issuing fan tokens which have privileges attached to it.

This declaration comes after Brooklyn Nets star Kevin Durant signed a new promotional agreement with the leading crypto exchange in the US, Coinbase. Reportedly, this deal will see Coinbase run crypto ads on Durant’s sports website. Additionally, the crypto exchange will donate to the NBA star’s charitable foundation to support the youth.

Tsai’s love for crypto has nothing to do with Alibaba

Tsai speaking about crypto is noteworthy because he is second in command in Alibaba after Jack Ma, the founder of the Chinese e-commerce company. According to New York Times, China’s tech industry considers Ma the creative force and Tsai the force that brings the ideas to life.

While Tsai’s declaration remains vague at the moment, it is easy to conclude that it has nothing to do with Alibaba. This is because the company announced that it would stop selling specialized mining equipment on its platform. Additionally, the firm prohibited its platforms from selling digital assets, such as Bitcoin (BTC/USD), Ethereum (ETH/USD), and Litecoin (LTC/USD).

Despite Tsai saying he likes crypto, the market has continued performing poorly today. At the time of writing, BTC is changing hands at $49,093.23 (£36,567.09) after losing 4.91% of its value over the past 24 hours. The altcoin market is also bleeding with all coins in the top-10 list of leading cryptos losing between 1.02% and 8.44% in the day.

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