‘This is annoying’: Elon Musk on Twitter’s NFT-linked profile footage function

Twitter’s newest function that permits customers to showcase non-fungible tokens (NFTs) as their profile footage is “annoying”, mentioned Tesla CEO Elon Musk on Friday. 

Posting a screenshot of Twitter’s new function, Musk mentioned, “This is annoying” and adopted up with criticism of crypto-related spam.

“Twitter is spending engineering assets on this bs whereas crypto scammers are throwing a spambot block celebration in each thread!?” he wrote. 

Musk was thought of a champion of digital property till May 2021, when he questioned the environmental influence of Bitcoin mining. 

He has since taken a extra eclectic strategy to crypto, though he continues to combine digital currencies into his enterprise, together with accepting funds for merchandise in meme foreign money Dogecoin.

Twitter’s NFT profile image 

Twitter Inc on Thursday introduced the launch of the software, tapping right into a digital collectibles craze that has exploded over the previous 12 months.

The function, accessible on iOS to customers of the corporate’s Twitter Blue subscription service, connects their Twitter accounts to crypto wallets the place the customers retailer NFT holdings.

Twitter shows the NFT profile footage as hexagons, differentiating them from the usual circles accessible to different customers. Tapping on the photographs prompts particulars in regards to the artwork and its possession to look.

Like different tech corporations, Twitter is dashing to money in on crypto tendencies like NFTs, a sort of speculative asset authenticating digital gadgets equivalent to photos, movies and land in digital worlds.

The social media platform final 12 months added performance for customers to ship and obtain Bitcoin.

Sales of NFTs reached some $25 billion in 2021, in keeping with information from market tracker DappRadar, though there have been indicators of development slowing towards the tip of the 12 months.

Proponents of “Web3” applied sciences like NFTs say they decentralize possession on-line, making a path for customers to earn cash from fashionable creations, slightly than having these advantages accrue primarily to a handful of tech platforms.

Critics dismiss the decentralization claims, noting that lots of the companies powering adoption of these applied sciences – just like the six crypto wallets supported by Twitter’s NFT product – are backed by a small group of enterprise capitalists.

In a broadly circulated tweet after the launch, safety researcher Jane Manchun Wong highlighted a kind of hyperlinks, exhibiting how an outage at venture-backed NFT market OpenSea quickly blocked NFTs from loading on Twitter.

An NFT is a unit of information saved on a digital ledger, referred to as a blockchain, that certifies a digital asset to be distinctive and subsequently, not interchangeable. NFTs can be utilized to characterize gadgets equivalent to images, movies, audio, and different forms of digital information.

Subscribe to Mint Newsletters * Enter a legitimate e-mail * Thank you for subscribing to our e-newsletter.

Never miss a narrative! Stay related and knowledgeable with Mint.
Download
our App Now!!