Background

NFTs were first described, in principle if not by name, in Meni Rosenfeld’s 2012 “Overview of Colored Coins.” The paper described a protocol built atop Bitcoin that enabled the marking, or "coloring" of coins, for the purpose of establishing ownership or represent some real-world asset. ¹

The concept evolved over the next four years, mostly on early altcoin protocols Namecoin and Counterparty, before the definitive NFT implementation was made on Ethereum in 2017, and the modern era of NFTs was ushered in. ²

The first two Ethereum NFT series were deployed in 2017, CryptoPunks in June ³ and CryptoKitties in October. ⁴ Both were received well by the market, with sales figures briefly capturing mainstream news headlines. ⁵ But the hype was short lived. As the 2017 crypto bull market turned into the 2018 bear, the buzz around crypto collectibles all but faded.

While potential use-cases for NFTs expanded over the next few years, it wasn’t until 2021 that NFTs began to show true staying power as digital collectables. In 2021, NFT markets flourished. Aggregate NFT trading volume saw a more than 30,000% increase from 2020 year-over-year, from $82 million in 2020 to $25.1 billion in 2021. In 2022, despite mixed market conditions and sentiment, total organic NFT trading volume ended the year nearly even with 2021, with $24.7 billion in total. ⁶

Social media giants began their entry into NFTs in 2021 and 2022, however confused their approaches sometimes seemed. In June of 2021, Twitter released a set of seven limited-edition Ethereum-based NFTs depicting various Twitter symbols, memes, and then-CEO Jack Dorsey’s first tweet. ⁷ Reddit entered the NFT arena in June of 2021 with the auction of three Ethereum NFTs featuring its mascot “Snoo.” ⁸ In May of 2022 Instagram launched a large-scale digital collectibles initiative to “Support Creators and Collectors in Showcasing their NFTs on Instagram.” ⁹

While the social media giants of yesterday scramble to latch onto the NFT hype in some relevant way, we present a platform built around NFTs, where NFTs are native, and where you own what you say.