YouTube’s Chief Executive Officer announced yesterday that the firm is looking into ways for its video creators to profit from non-fungible tokens, making it the latest tech giant to cash in on the digital collectibles craze that has blossomed in the last year.
YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki wrote in a letter about the company’s 2022 priorities, “We’re always focused on expanding the YouTube ecosystem to help creators capitalise on emerging technologies, including things like NFTs, while continuing to strengthen and enhance the experiences creators and fans have on YouTube.”
NFTs are a form of digital asset that exists on the blockchain record-keeping system. People are buying artwork and video clips from sports games as NFTs, which has experienced a boom in popularity over the last year. According to market tracker DappRadar, NFT sales hit around $25 billion in 2021, however there were signs of growth slowing near the end of the year. A YouTube spokeswoman declined to provide any information about the prospective NFT features, which were initially reported by Bloomberg News.
Twitter Inc. announced the launch of a technology last week that allows users to display NFTs as hexagonal profile images. According to the Financial Times, Meta Platforms Inc is working on ways to let people to generate and sell NFTs on Facebook and Instagram. Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri announced in December that the business was looking into NFTs.
In September, TikTok, a popular short video app, joined the bandwagon by unveiling an NFT collection produced by some of its best creators. Reddit Inc has also been looking at the field, with recent job postings on LinkedIn describing a “rapidly growing team that wants to build the largest creator economy on the internet, powered by independent producers, digital commodities, and NFTs.”
