On Tuesday, Elon Musk's X Corp. wrote out its ambitious vision for 2024, which includes the launch of peer-to-peer payments and more artificial intelligence-driven tools. In the midst of all this, the company has quietly removed a feature for paying customers. They can no longer use NFTs as personal photos.
The feature was initially rolled out in January 2022 under Twitter's previous management. At the time, the company allowed TwitterBlue users to set NFTs (ERC-721 or ERC-1155 tokens) minted on Ethereum as their profile picture, which ended up appearing as a hexagon. Users can click/tap on the profile picture to learn more about the NFT, including details such as the NFT’s collection, contract address, TokenID, and the application for minting the NFT.
X has now removed all description of the NFT profile image feature from its XPremium support page.
"As a premium user, you can create a custom [sic] profile so that you can display the NFTs you own in a hexagonal profile picture on your account. After temporarily connecting to your cryptocurrency wallet, allowing you to set an NFT as your profile picture, your digital assets will be displayed in a special hexagon, indicating that you are the owner of that NFT."
Users who set the NFT as their profile picture still have a hexagonal avatar. It's unclear whether X will eventually remove these avatars as well.
Given that other social networks have also stopped experimenting with NFTs, the cancellation of the feature is not a huge surprise. In 2022, both Instagram and Facebook will begin experimenting with displaying and publishing NFTs. However, Meta shut down support for NFTs in March 2023.
While the value of some high-priced tokens, such as Bored Ape Yacht Club BAYC, has dropped sharply from their peak, the NFT market has shown signs of recovery in the past few months, with trading volume exceeding $1.6 billion, according to NFT aggregator CryptoSlam.