The Tron (TRX) founder Justin Sun says that TronDAO, a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) that governs the Tron network’s development, wants to “acquire” a non-fungible token (NFT) arm of the Chinese tech powerhouse Tencent.

As previously reported, Tencent once had high hopes for its NFT units and could have theoretically developed them into some of Asia’s most lucrative platforms. Tencent has massive financial resources and a vast preponderance of gaming and entertainment IPs. But the firm was forced to heavily water down its offerings by the Chinese government, which imposed strict regulations on the NFT sector.

These regulations included a de facto ban on the term “NFT” itself (Tencent and its Chinese rivals were forced to call their offerings “digital collectables”). Beijing has also placed heavy restrictions on secondary market trading, and companies have been forced to use private blockchains – rather than popular public networks.

Tencent had attempted to soldier on, launching the Huanhe app and trading platform. After a promising start last year, more recent Huanhe collections have experienced sluggish sales. And earlier this week, the firm reportedly announced that it was closing down Huanhe for good.

Per Jiemian, a number of other NFT-related Tencent services, including Magic Core, have also been earmarked for closure, and Tencent is keen to take “cost-saving” measures after experiencing a 23% year-on-year slump in net profits in the first quarter of the current financial year. The company saw similar drops in the last two quarters of FY2021.

The media outlet stated that Magic Core would cease operating “this week,” quoting unnamed Tencent insiders.

Sun, however, is keen to step in – and wants to integrate Huanhe as part of the ApeNFT ecosystem.

On Twitter, he wrote that, 

The TronDAO “intends to acquire” Huanhe “so we can continue to support and [build] on it to provide a top notch platform for all users with [the] ApeNFT platform.”

When a Twitter user replied by challenging Sun to “make sure” he “screened the employees so that you have someone who can make the team successful,” the Tron founder replied:

“Yes. It is the first thing we would do.”

ApeNFT was launched in April this year as the “first official NFT marketplace on” the Tron network. Sun has attempted to kickstart interest in the platform by “donating several well-known artworks,” including the works “Le Nez” by Giacometti and “Femme nue couchée au collier (Marie-Thérèse)” by Pablo Picasso to the ApeNFT’s foundation “to support the development of NFT art.”