"The core of art lies in its uniqueness, but digitalization has provided opportunities for duplication." In the five years of engaging in digital art compliance consulting, I have never felt the industry's true pain as strongly as in 2026.

A set of figures illustrates the severity of the problem: the global digital art auction transaction volume is expected to surpass 9 billion yuan, Generation Z collectors account for 20%, and while the market is booming, three major issues—copyright infringement and piracy, authenticity verification, and cross-border compliance—are becoming increasingly difficult to handle.

On one hand, artists' creations are casually copied and minted into NFTs, making it difficult to provide solid evidence for rights protection. On the other hand, collectors who purchase digital collectibles at high prices often discover they are counterfeit. Even more heartbreaking, in 2026, the EU DAC8 Directive and the OECD Crypto Asset Reporting Framework (CARF) are implemented simultaneously, requiring NFT transactions to meet compliance requirements such as tax reporting and identity verification—privacy protection and regulatory transparency are always at odds.

A typical case I have personally handled involved a digital artist who spent half a year creating the "Hoshino Dusk" NFT series, only to have it minted and sold by someone else before official release. Although there were drafts and timestamps documenting the creation process, records on traditional centralized platforms are easily tampered with, making rights protection extremely difficult.

The core of these contradictions lies in how to balance "creative privacy," "transaction security," and "regulatory compliance." The combination of zero-knowledge proofs and compliance architecture finally opens new possibilities for digital art—undisputed rights, traceable transactions, and privacy-preserving compliance. As the industry ecosystem undergoes standardization and upgrading, the NFT market is entering a true turning point.