Last updated on March 9th, 2022 at 09:39 am
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SocialFi projects are gaining more attention, social media giants like Meta, Twitter and Reddit are expanding their exploration of the space through NFT integrations into their platform.
A decentralized, open and user-controlled ecosystem, SocialFi protects the privacy and safety of users and the ownership of users’ assets.
What is SocialFi
SocialFi, short for Social Finance, refers to the combination of social networking and blockchain finance. The SocialFi space lets users earn income from content creation, participation in DAO governance, NFT minting, communicating with other users, watching entertainment and gaming. Unlike the Web 2.0 social networks that we’re familiar with, SocialFi projects provide higher levels of privacy and security for users’ data, fairly distribute advertising revenues and offer a more valuable user experience.
Social Media Companies Entering The SocialFi Space By Embracing NFTs
As the SocialFi space gains more momentum, more and more social media giants are expanding the exploration of NFT integration into their platform. Below we’ve listed the companies actively integrating or exploring the NFT space.
Facebook/Meta
With an estimated user base of over 2.89 billion as of 2021, it comes as no surprise that Facebook ruled communication in Web 2.0. Facebook, now known as Meta, is making strides in its transition towards Web 3.0. Meta’s move in building the world’s biggest social media metaverse.
Although the photo-sharing platform hasn’t hopped onto the NFT train yet, the company’s CEO revealed late last year that they are exploring the NFT space in hopes of making NFTs more accessible to their user base.
With plans to integrate cryptocurrencies into their platform, Twitter has rolled out a new feature that allows their Twitter Blue account users to show off their NFT as their profile pictures.
Not missing out on the opportunity to emerge into the SocialFi space, Reddit followed closely behind Twitter with the NFT profile picture rollout. On top of planning to create an NFT marketplace in the near future, the social media giant has plans to convert people’s Karma points into crypto tokens.
YouTube
As part of efforts to expand their ecosystem, YouTube has started looking into NFTs as an alternative source of revenue for their creators. To start, YouTube has been distributing personalized NFTs to influencers on the platform and has announced that creators will be able to monetize the video content they create and sell them as NFTs.
Social Finance NFT Trends On Social Media
NFT Avatar Trend
It’s common to see most Twitter profiles with NFT Avatars. Avatars have long been used in the social media space to represent a user’s identity online. In SocialFi spaces, an NFT Avatar can represent the owner’s identity in both the crypto world and the futuristic metaverse. For example, Twitter Blue allows users to verify and use their NFT as their profile picture, and more social media platforms are following suit.
Social media (SocialFi) platforms as new crypto exchange.
Decentralized Finance apps are gradually being introduced to platforms like Facebook and Twitter to provide users with a next-generation personal finance experience. This means users will be able to send payments, trade tokens, participate in public offerings and much more all on one social network platform.
Making NFTs more accessible to the masses on Social Finance
More open source Web 3.0 application makers, like the Mask Network, are creating decentralized application ecosystems that bridge the existing Web 2.0 and Web 3.0. In hopes of bringing more Web 3.0 applications to traditional social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook.
On top of enriching NFT-related content options by making it easier for people to discover talented creators, DApps like the Mask extension can save NFT creators and NFT enthusiasts a lot of tedious steps. For example, instead of needing two different accounts, one for your social platform and one for an NFT marketplace, content creators and NFT collectors can seamlessly move between platforms, browse for information and shop NFTs with just one account.
Conclusion
While Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube are now synonymous with the word social media, this is probably about to change soon. Blockchain technology is giving birth to a new wave of social networks that could be bigger and even better. These new networks take the existing social models and give them superpowers. Data scams, uninformed algorithm changes and unnecessary content censorship could become a thing of the past. This is because these new social networks are owned and run by the community.
Along with this, they also bring the possibility of social finance (SocialFi). Social influence on these networks is tokenized and users can get direct monetary benefits from being influential figures on these platforms.
The rise of these new social networks and their SocialFi integration is probably one of the best uses of blockchain technology and could be at the helm of mass adoption
