5 mins readDid you know that social media profile images are one of the most popular ways to show ownership of NFTs?
If you've ever heard the word PFP NFTs, you thought it meant letters typed at random on a keyboard. These letters, but, do have meaning! To be clear, PFP NFTs are profile photo non-fungible tokens.
This term refers to the well-known use in NFT space as profile images on social media such as Twitter. You might have seen famous people with Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT pictures. But, these profile pictures are a small part of a bigger world that uses NFTs for digital images.
From January 2022, Twitter allowed users to set their profile pictures as NFTs
The Early Beginnings of PFP NFTs
The project CryptoPunks had created in 2017 by two guys, John Watkinson and Matt Hall. This project gave rise to the idea of using NFTs for digital items. Larva Labs made 10,000 unique, random 2D pictures, called CryptoPunks. They also sold special crypto tokens to show who owned these pictures.
It seemed that the Punks have fun personalities that the owners can relate to. Both the designs and supply of every CryptoPunks are unique during life. Some traits are repeated, and others show up several times in the collection. The ones that are rarest and most valuable are unique.
Watkinson and Hall produced tokens on Ethereum to show who owned the CryptoPunks. These were some of one of the first versions of non-fungible tokens. At first, these were only standard ERC-20 tokens with a few adjustments. Every token from 10 000 was a unique cryptopunk with a combination of traits.
Everyone can check the rarity of collection CryptoPunks free by the team nextNFTmint
The creators made trading traits of these tokens impossible. CryptoPunks and similar projects have helped create the standard NFT token called ERC-721. This token is special because it makes NFTs different from other crypto tokens.
CryptoPunks’s success gave rise to a series of more projects that took inspiration from it. Watkinson and Hall went on to develop Meebits. Meebtis, like CryptoPunks, were 3D characters with varying degrees of traceability and uniqueness.
Back in April 2022, CryptoPunks had a floor price of approximately 62 ETH or more than $180,000. It means that it is the cheapest that you can buy any of the collection’s NFTs. The floor price of Meebits is another the price of CryptoPunks. But it will be tough to find one for less than 1 ETH equivalent to $1,900.
PFP NFTs and Their Verification on Twitter
Twitter linked profile pictures and NFTs when it began to verify that the user owns the NFTs in the web3 wallet.
From January 2022, Twitter allowed users to set their profile pictures as NFTs. They also gave a special hexagonal border to these pictures to show they were real. While others can copy and paste the image as they please, they will never be able to get to the border. OpenSea powers this feature and is currently limited to Twitter Blue subscribers.
Introducing NFT profile picture by Twitter
The Rise of the Bored Apes
It was in April 2021 when the most successful PFF NFTs entered the picture. It was none other than Yuga Labs’ Bored Ape Yacht Club or BAYC collection.
BAYC drew many things from other projects such as CryptoPunks. The collection consists of 10,000 monkeys, each of which has traits of rarity and uniqueness. These images consist of humanoid apes that look like their personalities are fun.
BACY brought the innovation of bundling different benefits with NFT ownership. For instance, owners often receive rewards with the rest of the NFTs all for free. Each of them is given a dog NFT at a certain point, which is the Bored Ape Kennel Club or BAKC.
They got a serum that they can use for minting their Mutant Ape Yacht Club or MAYC NFT which has variable traits. Aside from this, ownership of BAYC confers access to the exclusive Discord server. The company describes the concept as the so-called club model. The benefits are not only to owning a token as it also means community membership.
One great advantage for BAYC owners is that they can use their images in any way they like, even to earn money.
Let's follow which celebrities have bought the pricey Bored Ape NFTs
The investor of Yuga Lab - Samsung Next, believes that this freedom has changed how media content is used. Before, old-style media businesses usually didn't let customers earn money from their content. But Yuga Labs decided to remove all these rules to make their brand more attractive and fun.
There was a point when you can get your hands on the most affordable BAYC NFT for no less than 139 ETH. This is over $400,000. Association with celebrities is among the reasons behind these sky-high prices. Some of the big names that hold BAYC NFTS include Jimmy Fallon, Madonna, and Eminem, to mention a few.
But the newcomers didn’t lose sight of their heritage, though. In March 2022, Yuga Labs bought the rights to Meebits and CryptoPunks. They also said that the people who owned the tokens would get commercial rights. This would bring close the older collections in line with the latest club model. Yuga stated that they are looking forward to what they will be doing with the IP rights.
Exploring the Future of PFP NFTs
Right now, there are hundreds of PFP NFTs available. These include projects like World of Women, utility PFPs like Moonbirds, and many more. You can pick from these options to find the perfect profile picture that shows who you are online.
