"People who bought NFTs have to keep hyping other people to buy NFTs or the NFTs they bought will lose value," a developer says.
Many people find non-fungible tokens exciting — an asset class that unlocks access to new forms of digital art, and breathes new life into the world of trading cards and collectibles.
Indeed, a crucial milestone for adoption was reached last week when Twitter unveiled a new feature that allows verified NFTs to be displayed as profile pictures.
But there's no escaping the fact that a sizable number of Twitter users — scratch that, the public at large — find the discourse around NFTs downright annoying, and simply can't fathom how cartoon apes can end up being worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.
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'NFT Users Are Just Irritating'
Now, a developer has created a browser extension that allows users to automatically block the profiles of those who have an NFT avatar. Explaining the rationale behind their invention, they wrote:
"In short, NFT users are just irritating to be around. People who bought NFTs have to keep hyping other people to buy NFTs or the NFTs they bought will lose value. Twitter NFT cliques are rife with sockpuppet accounts, dogpiling and indifferentiable monkey clones. Blocking NFT users just makes Twitter nicer."
They went on to argue that NFTs have "a shocking amount of impact on global warming" because of how it largely relies on energy intensive Proof-of-Work blockchains, adding: "I don't want to be in a community with people who support that."
And with a number of artists claiming their work has been ripped off without their consent, the developer said: "The NFT market is rife with scams and art theft."
Jack Dorsey — who has now stepped down as Twitter's CEO — doesn't escape criticism either, despite the fact that he's no longer responsible for the day-to-day running of the social network:
"Twitter has a feature (currently in closed beta) where you can showcase an NFT in your profile. Probably they are doing this because Jack Dorsey is invested in cryptocurrency and if Twitter makes NFTs more popular, Jack Dorsey will make money."
Further upgrades to the NFT blocker are planned in the future that will scan a user's notifications and automatically target the accounts of those who have one of these avatars.
It's unclear how many people have downloaded this plugin — and indeed, how much traction it will end up getting.
