Just two years after Twitter introduced hexagonal NFT profile pictures, they have suddenly ceased to exist. According to TechCrunch, the platform has quietly and abruptly abandoned this feature, and has reverted all hexagonal profile pictures back to the traditional circular profile pictures.
Hexagonal NFT profile pictures debuted on Twitter in January 2022, as an additional option for Twitter Blue (now Premium) subscribers, who were given the choice to link their Twitter accounts to their crypto wallets.
To distinguish NFT profile pictures from the simple images that us mere mortals use, they were given hexagonal frames that caught quite a bit of attention (the frames, not the pictures themselves). Twitter was one of the few mainstream platforms to adopt NFTs, and this step by the social network, which at that time was not in the clutches of a South African billionaire, was received with great enthusiasm by the crypto enthusiasts and snake oil salesmen in general.
The best part is that the removal of support for NFT profile pictures happened without any prior notice: the references to these elements were simply deleted from the Twitter Premium support page. Fortunately, the “Spanish” (so to speak) version of this page shows us what it said before the change:
“Create a community: As a Premium subscriber, you can create and customize your profile so that you can display the NFTs you own in a profile picture in the shape of a hexagon on your account. After a temporary connection to your crypto wallet that allows you to set an NFT as a profile picture, your digital asset is displayed in a special hexagon shape that identifies you as the owner of that NFT.”
This unexpected change comes just two days after Elon Musk’s Twitter plans for 2024 were revealed, which include, of course, the inclusion of AI in many of the social network’s experiences. Will this technological trend also have an expiration date?
