Twitter Inc. TWTR -0.19% will start allowing some users to use nonfungible tokens as their profile pictures, jumping into a digital-goods business that has exploded over the past year.
The feature, launching Thursday, is being offered to users of Twitter’s Blue subscription service. It marks the company’s biggest push thus far into NFTs, which are tokens that act as vouchers of authenticity for virtual goods, such as digital art, that can be tracked and traded along blockchain technology, a type of digital ledger.
By launching NFT profile pictures, Twitter is positioning itself as the social network for the discovery, conversation and education around NFT, blockchain and crypto technology, said Esther Crawford, the company’s product lead for the effort. NFTs, whose popularity has surged over the past year, have been sold mainly on platforms with less of a mainstream audience.
“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,” she said. “This is just still very early days for us, but we wanted to build something that was a utility for this community that they could start interacting with right now.”
NFT profile pictures will be clearly distinguishable, appearing as hexagons rather than the standard circles across the social app, the company said. Users can tap on the hexagonal pictures to see more information about the digital pieces of art.
For now, only Twitter Blue subscribers using Apple Inc. iOS devices will be able to upload NFT profile pictures, Twitter said.
Twitter Blue offers subscribers features such as the ability to undo a tweet or customize the Twitter app icon on their mobile device. Launched last year as part of an effort to boost revenue beyond advertising, the service is currently limited to users in the U.S., Canada, New Zealand and Australia. It costs $2.99 a month in the U.S. Twitter declined to disclose how many users the feature has won.
Twitter is joining with companies such as Coinbase Global Inc. and OpenSea, formally called Ozone Networks Inc., to support NFT profile pictures.
The rollout will expose the emerging blockchain technology to Twitter’s 211 million monetizable daily active users.
“We know that for many people their first experience of NFTs will happen on Twitter with this feature and with the conversations that are taking place on the platform,” Ms. Crawford said.
The introduction of NFT profile pictures is Twitter’s first crypto technology launch since the company in November unveiled Twitter Crypto, a unit “focused on crypto, blockchains, and other decentralized technologies.”
The new feature also comes after Parag Agrawal succeeded co-founder Jack Dorsey as CEO in December. During his time at the helm, Mr. Dorsey was a big proponent of bitcoin and blockchain technologies, and Ms. Crawford said the new CEO is also making them a priority.
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