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THE LIPSTICK THAT PRINTS MONEY

By Zimbo · November 3, 2026

AI cartoon by Zimbo: Satirical cartoon: livestreamer Austin Li holds a giant red QwenWork AI Membership lipstick pouring AI TOKENS vouchers over a cheering crowd with shopping baskets and carts, beside a LIVE phone and ring light.
Austin Li, the Lipstick King, pours AI-token vouchers from a giant QwenWork lipstick over a stampeding Singles' Day crowd.Zimbo for AI News Page

The story behind the cartoon

Singles' Day, China's giant shopping festival, has a new marquee product category for the first time: AI token packages — computing credits for AI tools.

Top livestreamer Austin Li, the "Lipstick King" famous for selling lipstick by the truckload, sold 100,000 monthly memberships of Alibaba's QwenWork office AI service within half an hour on Taobao Live, about 2 trillion tokens' worth, in his first-ever sale of AI products.

Alibaba's Tmall has launched an AI Token Center featuring Alibaba Cloud, MiniMax, Moonshot AI and Z.AI, and JD.com a rival token section; Alibaba says token-plan sales October 1–20 soared 450 percent month on month.

The Lipstick King used to sell lipstick by the truckload; now he sells computing by the truckload, poured straight out of the tube while the crowd fights over the refills.

READ THE FULL REPORT — SRN News ↗

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