Social media giant Twitter has enabled a feature that lets users officially verify NFTs used for their profile pictures. Previously, anyone could simply right-click and copy an image, and there was no proof of ownership without digging into the Ethereum blockchain to check it.
The feature, which was rolled out on Jan. 20, is only available to paid subscribers of Twitter’s Blue service. Official NFTs will be highlighted by a hexagonal border instead of the traditional circular one used for profile pictures.
The move marks the firm’s biggest push into the NFT space to date. Twitter has become the social media platform of choice for the crypto industry over the past few years.
There are ways around it for wily hackers to copy the image, mint an NFT of it with a blockchain address, and upload it to their profiles. Twitter has yet to confirm how it intends to combat any digital thievery that may occur.
What is an NFT Profile Picture?
For the uninitiated, NFTs are digital assets that can be in the form of art, GIF, music, short videos, for that matter even your profile picture can be turned into an NFT— what makes NFT special is that it is stored on a blockchain (a digital database that’s publicly accessible) that stores proof of ownership.
Twitter’s NFT Push
Company product lead, Esther Crawford, said Twitter is “positioning itself as the social network for the discovery, conversation, and education around NFT, blockchain, and crypto technology,” according to the WSJ.
“Crypto is a key pillar of Twitter’s future. We want to support this growing interest among creators to use decentralized apps to manage virtual goods and currencies,”
Twitter uses a third-party API (application programming interface) to grab a user’s NFT from the OpenSea marketplace, which acts as the verification. If OpenSea has any issues, then Twitter may not be able to verify the images and tokens.
Competition in the NFT space is heating up, and social media companies want to be at the forefront. Meta is also reportedly working on plans to allow users to create and sell NFTs on its own Facebook and Instagram marketplace.
In November, Twitter announced that it was launching a new division to focus on NFTs, crypto, dapps, and blockchain technology.
NFT Ecosystem Outlook
The NFT ecosystem saw explosive growth in 2021, which has continued into this year. According to Nonfungible.com, there has been $517 million in NFT sales over the past week. It reported that 277,509 NFTs have been sold on primary and secondary markets.
Collection tracker CryptoSlam is reporting that the most popular NFT collection over the past week is Meebits, with a whopping $1.9 billion in secondary sales trade volume.