ONE SMALL STEP FOR BORED APES: TWITTER LAUNCHES NFT PROFILE VERIFICATION

Everywhere you look these days, things are going web3. But despite the great speed with which we are moving ever forward, the shift into total and complete metaverse-ness won’t happen overnight. Instead, web3 has, and will continue to, gradually become a part of our online social lives. The recently Musk-acquired Twitter has taken a step in the web3 direction, launching its NFT profile verification. Right-clickers begone!

When it comes to using NFTs (non-fungible tokens) as profile pictures on Twitter, crypto believers have always struggled with skepticism of “ownership.” While owning an NFT is quite legitimate in the blockchain, the online world is a visual one, and thievery of these visual assets has brought into question the durability of “ownership” over NFTs. 

Thievery? Yes, “stealing” the likeness of an NFT has become quite the little scandal. Sure, you may own that one-of-a-kind image of a monkey on a boat––own in the sense that the token is affixed to your Ethereum address on an immutable, append-only ledger. However, nothing’s stopping your average bird app user from right-clicking that image and setting it as their profile picture too. 

Hence the verification launch, which allows users to connect their Twitter account to their Ethereum wallets. Now, verified NFT profiles will be marked by a hexagonal border as opposed to your average circular orb persona. Check out this crash course from the Hypebeast Instagram page:

It’s been a whirlwind couple of months for Twitter. On April 25th, the app was bought for $44 billion ($54.20 per share) by Tesla CEO, SpaceX founder, and creator of Boring Company Elon Musk. And just like that, Twitter has become a private company. 

When the transaction was under way, Musk pronounced––ever ominously––that he wanted to make Twitter “better than ever….authenticating all humans.”  Was Musk going to do away with anonymous users entirely? The internet wondered. But this recent NFT verification launch could put some stock in the Tesla CEO’s statement about authentication. But will it stop crypto thieves altogether? Afterall, a hexagonal border can, indeed, be mimicked. I couldn’t profess to know how, but I’m sure of its possibility in seasoned hands of trickery. 

All sorts of things are up in the air in crypto, but for now, rest easy. Your monkey is safely yours. Now go verify it!