The move marks a major retreat by Tencent from the NFT market, which has come under increased scrutiny from Chinese regulators.

China's banking system is bursting with cash. Savers added 10.3 trillion yuan ($1.52 trillion) in deposits in the first half and M2 money supply rose at the fastest pace in six years in July.

China’s yuan is facing the most sustained depreciation pressure since 2015, when a shock devaluation triggered a global stock market rout

China will step up the use of special local government bonds and new credit provided by policy banks, the top planning agency said.

Tencent hired financial advisers recently to examine the best way to cash in on its eight-year-old investment and placate regulators, sources with knowledge of the matter said.

There is no global payment system that is strong enough to act as an alternative to SWIFT and enable Russia to evade sanctions

The onshore yuan dropped 0.47% to 6.7950 per dollar on Tuesday, its lowest since May 16, on concern about its recovery from recent Covid lockdowns.

Shares of Longfor, CIFI and Country Garden all jumped by more than 15% in morning trading on Tuesday. The Hang Seng Mainland Properties Index climbed 9.2%.

"It seems like they're saying, 'We think the outlook for China tech is pretty poor so we're going to get in front of that'," said Redex Research analyst Kirk Boodry.

The arrival of a new team of senior US politicians in Taiwan late on Sunday led to China staging more military exercises on Monday near the self-ruled island

A weak economy, Covid disruptions and supply chain challenges hammered the company's sales while increased investment in new technologies was an additional drag.

SMIC got hit with US sanctions three days after he joined the company, and the Chinese government did not trust him due to his Taiwanese-US citizenship, Chiang said.