NFT Wars: Facebook owner Meta and Twitter reveal ambitious NFT plans

The sudden bullish reversal in the non-fungible token (NFT) market’s downtrend has been accompanied by a host of companies revealing their own plans for marketing them. Social media moguls have indicated over the week that they won’t be left behind, with Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta Platforms leading the pack.

The Financial Times revealed on Thursday Meta’s plans to host an NFT marketplace, in a bid to further position itself in the fast-evolving metaverse. Sources close to the development told FT that plans under development included giving users the option to mint their own collectibles, along with buying and selling a host of NFTs on the platform.

Moreover, the company’s social media platforms Facebook and Twitter will also enable features for users to display the NFT collectibles of their profiles.

The report added that while these plans were “fast-developing”, they remained in the early stages and could yet be changed.

Facebook has transformed into Meta last year as the company tried to find a new brand identity in the Web3 world, and has since spent around $10 billion on augmented and virtual reality research. Analysts predict that Meta will spend around $60 billion in total to carry out its metaverse vision.

These developments became public around the same time as Facebook’s rival Twitter revealed an update in its own NFT ecosystem. Users of the platform will now be allowed to use NFTs that they own as their profile pictures. This feature is only available for Apple users as of now but will be rolled out for other operating systems in the coming time.

gm!

You asked (a lot), so we made it. Now rolling out in Labs: NFT Profile Pictures on iOS pic.twitter.com/HFyspS4cQW

— Twitter Blue (@TwitterBlue) January 20, 2022

The new NFT avatars will show up as a hexagon, instead of a circle, and users can click on them to get more information about the artwork, including its creator and where it’s listed. Users will need to link their Ethereum wallets, which is the only supported as of now, to get a list of the NFTs they own along with verification from Twitter.

These developments have come at a time when daily NFT sales are exceeding $500 million after witnessing a period of dull growth. The total NFT market globally is estimated at around $40 billion, with each digital collectible having an average net worth of $1,866 at the time of writing.