Massive News — NFTs are going mainstream faster than expected
So we may have just had the best week For nfts maybe ever first off twitter And facebook made huge announcements That they’re fully embracing nfts in Their platforms stockx also announced That they’re integrating nfts and this Is a billion dollar marketplace and some Huge corporations are also filing for Entity patents now to be clear january Has already been an amazing month even Before any of these announcements during The last 20 days we’ve seen over four Billion dollars in monthly volume on Open seat and this is easily the highest Monthly volume we’ve ever seen and There’s still 10 days left in the month If you want to know how crazy this Growth has been check out january 2021 Volume Right there at 8 million dollars this Means more than a 500 x increase year Over year we’ve also hit 1 million total Wallets on openc this month compared to About 35 000 wallets last january and so The fundamentals were already solid but Then on top of that we just got a series Of huge announcements that could Significantly expand the current market The biggest news of the day was twitter Finally unveiling its nft profile pick Feature they’ve been teasing this for Months and then out of nowhere we got This trailer with a bunch of nft cameos And as you can see the end result is a
Hexagonal profile pick that quickly Tells you when something is an nft Versus a regular photo and you can also Click in and check out the metadata the Traits the wallets all that good good On-chain info now as you would expect Not everyone was ecstatic about this at The time that i’m recording that tweet Had over 12 000 quote tweets with a ton Of people giving their usual anti-nft Spiel threatening to leave the app and So on and so forth so this isn’t new Right we always see this vocal minority Come out whenever one of these Announcements gets made and sometimes The complaints get so loud that the Brand has to reverse the decision but in General we all march on and the size and Frequency of these integrations are only Going to go up from here all right Enough about the drama let’s talk about How the feature actually works so first Off it’s only available through twitter Blue which is their premium subscription Service that calls 299 per month i saw a Lot of people complaining about this but The way it’s framed it sounds like this Is just an early access type thing and That eventually it’ll be open to Everyone for free anyways around where i Live 299 barely gets you a cup of coffee And by the way a lot of these people That are complaining are also spending Tens of thousands of dollars on jpegs
But look i get it right it’s the Principle okay now on top of twitter Blue you’re also going to need an ios Device for this to work so i’m sorry for The android people you’re going to be Stuck with the right click savers for a Little while longer now twitter is using Open seas api to pull the data on listed Nfts and originally it looked like they Would only be considering verified Collections but actually any minted nft Works and there’s some controversy to This and i see both sides of the Argument on one side if you just allow Any nft to be used then someone could Take say a replica of a board ape and It’s going to be tough to know which One’s a fake and which one’s the real One unless you actually click in to see If it’s a verified collection which Let’s be honest 99 of people won’t do This is especially a problem for someone Like me who was hoping to use the nft Verification as a way to avoid scammers That are impersonating my profile but if They can just take the same nft that i’m Using and get a replica for it then it’s Still going to trick some people which Kind of sucks on the other hand people Can argue that if you limit it to the Verified collections and you’re giving Openc too much power as the arbiter of Truth when in reality a big part of what We’re doing here is trying to
Decentralize some of those powers so Anyways all things considered it isn’t a Perfect solution but i think it’s a good First draft and i’m sure they’re going To be taking feedback along the way now Do i recommend that you immediately go Out and get yourself a hexagon It’s probably not necessary but i do Think it’s cool being able to click on An nft that i haven’t seen before and to Be able to quickly just check out the Collection okay now the second huge Announcement of the day came from meta Or formerly known as facebook which Announced that they’re also bringing Nfts to their platform in a huge way and So as we see here teams at facebook and Instagram are readying a feature that Will allow users to display their Entities on their social media profiles As well as working on a prototype to Help users create or mint the Collectible tokens so this is probably Also going to include verified profile Pics like we’re seeing on twitter but it Can also include complete galleries like We’re seeing on openc so you can imagine Say a tab on your instagram profile Where you can show your entire nft Collection in a nice you know elegant Way and this brings it much more front And center compared to you know what we Have right now which is you know Directing someone to openc which is a
Platform that 99 of people aren’t Familiar with so this seems to be the First feature that they’re rolling out And if we take twitter as an example it Seems to have taken them between four to Five months to get this feature out from The point where they showed us the Internal mock-up and so conservatively You know we might not see the instagram Integration until maybe the end of Spring however the second phase is Definitely more ambitious and this is The prototype to help users create or Mint collectible tokens so this is Already the biggest step we’ve seen any Social media platform take and the end Goal is probably a full-fledged Marketplace similar to openc which as we Said in our recent video generated over 15 billion dollars in volume in the last Year alone and when you get that kind of Success that quickly the big boys are Gonna start to pay attention like we’ve Seen facebook imitate other companies Before when they start taking off right You know first you had snapchat and then Instagram introduced the stories feature And then the reels feature was just a Direct ripoff of tick tock and now it Looks like they’re going after open c as Their next victim and this actually Makes complete sense for meta to dive Into because of how much of the creator Economy is going through their platform
And we know that nfts are huge for Creators because it actually lets them Get paid for digital goods you have the Ongoing royalties it’s a great way to Boot trap a community etc and so this Fits well with meta strategy in the Short term but then obviously for the Long term as well since they have huge Ambitions for their version of the Metaverse and they previously hinted That nfts were a central part of that Vision now i can already hear the people In the back going whoa dude we’re Talking about facebook right mark Zuckerberg the guy’s insane why are we Gonna trust him with any of this and Look i agree right the fact that it Happens to be meta that’s taking the Lead on all this kind of sucks but there Is some hope the reports are showing That this nft integration will come with A new crypto wallet that facebook is Developing called novi and the first Example of how meta plans to use novi is With a stable coin called usdp which Runs on the ethereum network which most People would agree is a pretty Decentralized protocol and in recent Months mark zuckerberg has made comments That he’s more open to a decentralized Metaverse than most people are giving Him credit for saying quote no one Company will run the metaverse it will Be an embodied internet operated by many
Different players in a decentralized way So cautiously optimistic might be the Right approach here although i totally Get if people don’t even want to give Them the benefit of the doubt given Their track record okay now let’s take a Step back and look at these two Announcements from a high level twitter And facebook are two platforms that Control a large percentage of all the Impressions on the internet all around The world twitter’s last reported Numbers three years ago showed it had Between 300 to 400 million monthly Active users and instagram just last Month reported 2 billion monthly active Users that’s like 25 of the world’s Population logging onto instagram every Single month and yeah i know that’s Inflated with bots or whatever but it’s Still going to be a gigantic number and When we talk about nft scaling there are Really two paths to all of this getting Huge so first you have the bottoms up Way which is kind of what we’ve done all Year right it’s just people Talking about entities organically Buying and showing off what they bought And then just letting the platforms know That there’s demand for this technology This can be pretty effective because if You sell an nft to someone like neymar Who has over 100 million followers on Instagram that can generate an insane
Number of impressions but there’s an Even faster way and that’s from the top Down and i say faster because these Platforms have so much power that they Can change the behavior of millions of People by just adding or subtracting one Feature and while originally people may Have looked at these nfts as a sort of Weird and niche thing in a corner of the Internet filled with crypto bros having These mega platforms on board helps Normalize a trend and brings legitimacy Which in turn will encourage more brands And publishers to jump on the trend as Well now this doesn’t mean that we Should just blindly accept all these big Corporations with open arms right Clearly there’s a lot of boomer Companies that are looking at this as Just an additional revenue stream and Don’t really understand what’s happening Here for example a few days ago we found That walmart has been filling new Trademarks to create its own Cryptocurrency as well as an nft Collection and tom brady just raised 170 Million dollars to help celebrities Launch their own nft brands and based on The mixed results we’ve seen from Celebrities so far i’m not sure i’m Gonna be first in line to buy any of That the bottom line is that many Corporations are gonna jump in some are Gonna bring innovation but most will
Fail and that’s really how it always Happens whenever they jump on a new Trend so if we look again at our trusty Mainstream adoption map this is what we Were previously expecting we were hoping For twitter integration in january and Now we got it and we were also expecting Something from meta later in the year And this can now probably be moved up to The spring but as you can see there’s Still plenty more integrations left and I wouldn’t be surprised if facebook’s Aggressive move here has put youtube and Tick tock in a spot where they’re Feeling pressured to move faster because Again they’re all competing for market Share in this new creator economy so in The end obviously this is a great start To the year and all the pieces are Coming into place for the audience to Grow dramatically in the coming months Alright guys that’s it for today thanks For watching and i’ll catch you in the Next video