Twitter Hexagon NFT Profile Pictures

2022

Date: January 20, 2022 · Place: Twitter iOS, Twitter Blue subscribers, OpenSea verification · Figures: Esther Crawford, Twitter PM · Parag Agrawal, then-CEO · Jack Dorsey, prior CEO (bitcoin maxi, hexagon skeptic) · Tags: Platform, Hexagon, Identity, Status 01. The Shape That Splits The Timeline Twitter ships NFT profile pictures for Twitter Blue iOS subscribers. A user connects an Ethereum wallet, picks an owned NFT, and the avatar renders as a hexagon instead of a circle. Verification is on-chain ownership at the moment the avatar is set. The hexagon is immediately the most contested shape on the platform. Within 24 hours non-NFT-holders are setting hexagon-cropped avatars manually to mock the feature. Right-click-save-as discourse re-ignites at scale. 02. Status Object, Native to the Feed For BAYC, CryptoPunks, Doodles, and Azuki holders the hexagon converts a JPEG into a feed-native status object. Floor prices for blue-chip collections jump in the week following launch. Mfers and Goblintown holders adopt the hexagon as inverted-status badge. Jack Dorsey, who had stepped down as CEO seven weeks earlier, calls the feature 'a distraction' on his (still-circular) Twitter profile. The hexagon stays through the FTX collapse and the Musk acquisition before fading in 2023. Sources • Esther Crawford, launch thread, Twitter, January 20 2022 • Mitchell Clark, 'Twitter Launches NFT Profile Pictures,' The Verge, January 20 2022 • Twitter Engineering, 'NFT Profile Pictures on Twitter,' January 20 2022