Reddit, Twitter and Instagram are diving into NFTs, but will people actually use them?
Welcome to “This Week in the Metaverse,” where Fortune gathers the most interesting news in the world of NFT, culture and the metaverse. Email [email protected] with tips.
The last few weeks have been huge for Web3’s social media integration.
Reddit spawned more than 3 million crypto wallets after it announced its second generation of “anything but an NFT” collectibles on October 20. The newly Elon Musk-owned Twitter then said it was testing a feature to let users buy NFTs directly through tweetsand Meta’s Instagram said it would soon let some users buy and sell NFTs directly through the app, with no gas fees until 2024.
Despite NFT trading volumes crashing during Crypto Winter, major social media companies see value in promoting NFTs.
And it’s no wonder why. As of November 2, Reddit had sold just over $10 million worth of its collectibles.
But will the integration of NFTs into social media platforms actually push sales higher and increase crypto usage, or will millions of new users simply remain sidelined on Web2 platforms?
Let’s face it, the number of people in the US who own an NFT is still small. Although 46% percent of the American population was familiar with the term, only 2% said they had ever purchased one, according to an August study by the Pew Research Center.
Therefore, exposing Instagram’s more than 1 billion monthly active users to the technology can be nothing but a plus, according to Chris Cantino, co-founder of Color Capital, who tweeted Wednesday: “95% of Instagram users have never owned crypto or experienced NFTs in the wild. Now they’re about to see many of their favorite creators create and sell digital collectibles for the first time. This is the journey to mass adoption – and things are getting interesting.”
Preliminary data from OpenSea on user spillovers from Reddit appears to support this thesis. A spokesperson for the most popular NFT marketplace told Fortune that it had seen a 75% increase in new users on Polygon, the underlying blockchain of the Reddit NFTs, since the scary seasonal downturn at the end of October. The spokesperson added that 20% of NFT owners who came from Reddit went on to buy another NFT on OpenSea.
But there are still doubts about whether mass adoption is really just around the corner. A Reddit user and a moderator for a subreddit centered around the collectible avatars told Fortune that he hadn’t heard much about people experimenting with other NFTs or other platforms. He also said that the die-hard fans on Reddit are already making good money from trading and are more invested in the company’s plans for collectible avatars than in NFTs in general.
And there are new scams, which are already starting to appear for the new Reddit NFTs, according to some users.
Still, it’s possible that as Web3 features roll out to more and more social media platforms, the potential for mass adoption will skyrocket, which in turn will lead to a snowball effect of new features across multiple platforms.
As Reddit founder Alexis Ohanian said in a Thursday tweet“Builders must build.”
In other news:
Speaking of social integration with Web3, Telegram recently announced a new marketplace built on the Telegram Open Network (TON) blockchain that will be used to auction off rare handles to the platform. Telegram will start by auctioning off four- and five-letter handles, according to CoinTelegraph.
On Thursday, Prada launched the sixth in its series of Timecapsule NFT Collection drops, which will give holders access to unique experiences at Prada Mode Dubai and Prada Extends Miami. The November edition is reminiscent of patchwork designs from the 1970s.
Courtesy of Prada
Online gaming platform Roblox released a metaverse fashion report that combined behavioral data from Roblox and survey data from 1000 Gen Z active users aged 14 to 24 living in the US The biggest takeaways? Gen Z appreciates digital fashion and is willing to spend on it. Three in four respondents said they will spend money on digital fashion, and one in four said they had spent between $20 and $100 on a single virtual item. But when it comes to fashion, not everything will fly. Two-thirds said they were looking for brand names on digital goods, and the vast majority also said digital clothing design should be inclusive.
On Halloween, Funko and Warner Bros. Discovery global consumer products released a new horror themed digital pop! collection with characters from Warner Bros. and New Line Cinema movies, incl The Conjuring, Itand The Exorcist. Funko Digital Pop! the line consists of NFTs that resemble Funko’s uniquely stylized figures and start at $9.99 for a five-pack.
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