This week has seen another bumper crop of NFT rise from the Earth like a field of sun ripened corn, so here is our (sometimes) weekly NFT roundup that separates the wheat from the chaff.
Autograph Signs Up the Big Boys
Autograph, the Tom Brady NFT project, this week announced a $170 million Series B funding round co-led by Andreessen Horowitz’s a16z fund. Autograph, which issues various collectibles from prominent athletes, artists, and entertainers as NFTs, has already attracted a host of big names Tiger Woods, Tony Hawk, and Naomi Osaka, and can now look to expand its offering with the injection of cash.
A16z is known to be a massive funder of crypto projects, and the stellar collaborations Autograph has so far managed to bag suggests that this could be another home run for them.
Mastercard and Coinbase Make NFTeasy
Mastercard showed this week that whatever Visa can do it can do better (or at least differently) by signing a deal with Coinbase to allow its card holders to buy NFTs from the forthcoming Coinbase NFT platform.
The idea, which has annoyed crypto purists who put decentrlization above everything else, will see Mastercard users able to buy NFTs from Coinbase NFT as easily as buying regular online goods as the two financial goliaths strive to make the process of buying and trading NFTs more appealing to the masses.
Visa has of course already taken a couple of notable steps into the NFT arena by buying up a $150,000 Cryptopunk and launching an NFT artist creator program.
Twitter Blue+NFT+MetaMask=PFP
Twitter made buyers of seven-figure JPEGs feel better on Thursday when it announced that Twitter Blue users could have their NFT profile pictures verified. Users of its paid platform can now link their crypto wallets to Twitter and verify that they own the NFT they want to display, which means the right-click-save brigade cannot use an image of their NFT for their profile picture.
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
Twitter said that its customer base had been asking “a lot” for the feature, and this barrage of users will no doubt now be delighted that they have to pay monthly for the privilege of proving that they own what they bought.
Meta and Instagram Follow Suit
It wasn’t just Twitter that has been cosying up to NFT profiles this week. Bastion of forward thinking tech and lover of all things crypto The Financial Times revealed on Thursday that the Artist Formerly Known (and hated) as Facebook is also working on an NFT integration feature for Meta and Instagram. And it might not even charge for it!
The tech goliath is apparently working on a feature that will allow users to display their NFTs on their profiles, with its NFT integration potentially going as far as users being able to mint their own NFTs. Decentralization fans will probably be reaching for a bucket about now.
Bud Light Taps Nouns NFT for New Project
Bud Light got NFT fans frothing on Wednesday as it changed its Twitter profile picture to that of a Nouns NFT, an Ethereum project that mints just one new NFT avatar per day. Allied to this, Bud Light told fans it had “got something brewing” and invited interested parties to join its Discord group. Some fans wondered if a Superbowl advert featuring NFTs was in the offing, which would really be worth drinking to.
We’ve got something brewing.
Join our Discord and get ready for what’s next!https://t.co/txevk6xcJ2
— Bud Light (@budlight) January 19, 2022
