After Twitter, Now It's YouTube's Turn To Try NFT, Profitable For Content Creators

YouTube has started testing NFT on its platform. (photo: doc. pixabay)

JAKARTA - YouTube is reportedly embracing web3 technology, including Non-Fungible Tokens (NFT) as another source of revenue for content creators on its platform.

The plan was first announced by YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki in a letter to her community. She says he wants to be one of the newest tech companies to capitalize on the digital collection craze that has exploded in the last year.

"We've always focused on expanding the YouTube ecosystem to help creators take advantage of emerging technologies, including things like NFT, while continuing to strengthen and improve the experience content creators and fans have on YouTube," Wojcicki said, cited from Reuters, January 26.

Wojcicki outlines areas the company will invest in including, gaming, shopping, and how it plans to support content creators. Wojcicki said YouTube looked to Web3 as a source of inspiration, specifically noting opportunities with crypto, decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs), and NFT.

“The past year in the crypto world, NFTs, and even decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) have highlighted previously unimaginable opportunities to grow the relationship between creators and their fans,” said Wojcicki.

According to data from market tracker DappRadar, NFT sales totaled around USD 25 billion in 2021, despite signs of slowing growth towards the end of the year.

YouTube's new ambitions about the possibility of NFT are in line with other platforms that have recently launched their own versions or are rumored to be considering NFT features.

Twitter now offers a way for users with a dedicated NFT to show off their valuables via a hexagonal profile picture.

Meta, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, is reportedly preparing something similar where users can display the tokens they own. A market for NFT is also reportedly in the works.

Meanwhile, the popular short video app TikTok took to a craze in September, announcing an NFT collection designed by some of its top content creators.

Likewise Reddit Inc, which is also looking for a team to build the largest creator economy on the internet, backed by independent creators, digital goods and NFT.