Last year, Twitter announced its integration of NFT profile displays, as the crypto assets were gaining popularity, and made decent progress just as the year was rounding the corner. Fast-track to 2022, and Twitter’s NFT profile images come to another step closer, with some users now being notified about the option within the app.
Non-Fungible Twitter
Based on these screenshots posted by user @flytip, some users are now being prompted to add NFTs as their profile images, which, as stated before, will be displayed in a new, hexagonal format, providing a direct link to the NFTs listing on a blockchain to authenticate ownership.
As of their November update of last year, Twitter’s looking to continue riding the growing wave of NFT adoption by building an official integration process, which aims to make it easier for NFT owners to display their ownership, having at their disposal back-end links to their NFTs official information, ensuring that no one other than the actual owner may use and display the image in the new format.
Once linkage is provided, profile visitors will then be able to view more information about each NFT by tapping on it, which then takes them through a listing of both the owner and NFT creator, as listed on the blockchain. Think of it as a quick-tour ticket.
This would address one of the key criticisms with NFTs, that anyone can simply right click on a displayed image and hit ‘“save as”; now, they own the same piece, but didn’t have to spend a single cent. The new system prevents that and would ensure that only the owner has access to the official hexagonal profile image format, reducing unapproved use and improving the broader NFT display process.
NFTs have been trending over the last couple of months, and Twitter has become the central space for much of their discussion, though this doesn’t mean that NFTs are not without their drawbacks. Citing an example, underlying copyright, which pertains to total ownership of the ‘original’ piece, currently does not extend to NFTs, which makes actual ownership questionable – you would most likely own a ‘record of purchase’, rather than the actual, original artwork itself. The complete and total rights of the very first NFT piece would thus belong to the creator.
Many NFTs are also auto-generated, which only adds to the complexity of their ownership, given that these NFTs are created by AIs and not people. Economic considerations also fall into play, where various ‘pump and dump’ schemes are enacted by scammers to try and sell off their own NFTs at over-inflated prices to unwitting investors. Furthermore, it’s reported that only a small portion of traders actually make money off of NFTs, with recent statistics showing that of the $25 billion worth of NFT sales in 2021, only 10% of traders accounted for nearly 85% of all NFT transactions, meaning that it’s a very disparate market, at least presently.
The Wrap
There are many other elements to consider, especially if you take into account the broader ‘investor’ movement within the space, but as local initiatives, NFTs can open up some opportunities for social platforms to maximize their eCommerce efforts.
Outside being ‘exclusive’ commercial digital artworks, the long-term sustainability and viability of NFTs as elements within the broader Metaverse remains mostly unclear. However, they do stand to still be a substantial element within the cyber transaction space. Either way, NFTs seem to be doing something to contribute to community building and engagement, so that’s something to consider, making them likely to positively impact social platforms, to an extent.
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