I was reading this morning about how Meta is working on features that will allow users to display their NFTs on their social media profiles, and to possibly even buy and sell them from within Facebook and/or Instagram. I thought this was kind of newsworthy and so, after the reading the article, I opened up Twitter to share the story. This is then what popped up:

It is an invitation to use an NFT as my profile picture. Now, I am already doing this (it's a CryptoBabyPunk), except that it would take someone a bit of work to determine if I truly owned the NFT or if I was just posing as a proud CryptoBabyPunk owner for the purposes of trying to increase my internet stature.

So what this new feature is intended to be is a way to easily demonstrate proof of ownership. Once you connect your crypto wallet and select your NFT, your profile picture changes to a "special hexagonal shape." This is the marker. Though you have to be a paying Twitter customer to do it (currently a few dollars a month).

Some or many of you may be wondering why this is even worth talking about. Maybe you like your circular Twitter profile picture just the way it is. But these moves and announcements by large companies are both a vote of confidence for the crypto space and greater "utility" for NFTs.

The value that somebody might derive from an NFT is wide ranging. In some cases it might just be something to look at (which is generally how art works). And in some cases the NFT might grant access to exclusive events or provide other perks, some real and some alleged. It's all very much evolving as we speak. But in every case, you really need to be able to differentiate real from fake. What Twitter just did is a step in that direction.

Broadly speaking, the more infrastructure that gets built out around NFTs, the more value they will have. I think bringing NFT collections to our social media profiles is, for example, a perfectly obvious extension. Here are my photos. Here are my videos. Here's the stuff I'm tagged in. And here's my beautiful and wonderful NFT art collection.

You can bet that the NFTs will become just as curated and carefully managed as the rest of the profile.

Merry Christmas everyone!

And for those of you who don't celebrate, I hope you have a relaxing day with family and friends. We'll be making pancakes, because that's one of the things that we like to do on Christmas morning.

This time last year I think a lot of us thought that the world would feel far more normal by now. We're not in total lockdown like we were, but we are also not back to normal. And that is impacting our ability to be with some loved ones in the ways that would normally be possible.

Prior to this pandemic, we had also made a point of traveling during the holidays. This is that one time of the year when you can truly disconnect, explore the world, and not feel any anxiety every time you pick up your phone and see your inbox. That is obviously a challenge right now.

But these realities are no reason not to be grateful for this holiday season and to be hugely optimistic for the year ahead. We will be doing both of these things while we enjoy our Christmas pancakes. If any of you have any Christmas traditions of your own, I would love to hear from you in the comment section below.

P.S. The image at the top of this post is my CryptoBabyPunk NFT (#660) all dressed up for Christmas.

I was out for dinner this week with a group of real estate developers. And as you might expect, we spent the majority of the time talking about real estate and complaining about how long things take. But a good chunk of time was also spent pontificating about the world of crypto. That's what happens these days. In fact, one of my friends joked that my/this blog used to be a real estate and cities blog, but now it's a crypto blog. It's a joke, but I guess it's becoming partially true.

For as long as I can remember, I have always been interested in what's new and what's next. And I think this is next. So I'm reading, playing, thinking, and writing about it. And the more I do these things, the more my conviction grows. But what really did it for me was the hands-on playing around part. I'm not interested in owning a crypto ETF (the US is about to get its first bitcoin ETF based on futures contracts). I want to own the cryptocurrencies directly so I can see what they can do and how everything works. (Though I will say that this space is still not very user friendly.)

One of the things that comes to mind as I continue to play is the future interrelationship between our offline and online worlds. Because already we are living in a world where people now buy and collect rent on virtual real estate in places like Decentraland (REITs are even starting to emerge). Where parties happen online instead of offline (but still attract big name DJs). Where people buy digital fashion instead of physical fashion, and pay just as much for it and sometimes even more. And where augmented reality is changing how we experience our cities in real life. A few weeks ago, I came across a park in Paris that had partnered with Snapchat to deliver an AR experience, to give just one example.

These are meaningful shifts that are gaining traction (and this post is by no means an exhaustive list). And while I remain steadfast in my belief that cities are profoundly resilient and real-world experiences are irreplaceable, I do believe that our emerging digital worlds are going to have an impact on how we design and build our cities going forward. From art murals of NFTs to entire new virtual worlds, this is an exciting time for cities and technology.

Enjoy the weekend.