Even with tens of millions of crypto owners out there, the fact is that web3 and NFTs have a comically small number of users relative to the anger and ecstasy those topics generate.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, Silicon Valley venture capitalists are betting that these platforms will reach the mainstream quickly, and are bestowing hefty valuations on private startups aiming to expose users to things like NFTs. Just looking at relatively fresh startups like Dapper and OpenSea fetching valuations of $7.6 billion and $13.3 billion, respectively, and you can see just how thirsty VCs are.<\/p>\n

But when it comes to crypto powerhouses, I\u2019d still argue there\u2019s no bigger presence in web3 than Twitter. The social network is at the heart and soul of crypto and NFTs (whether they like it or not) and the vast majority of deals and relationships in the space spark up because of interactions on the Twitter platform.<\/p>\n

The above is my justification to talk a bit about Elon Musk\u2019s Twitter bid and the world that could be.\u00a0Now, Musk\u2019s stated intent of making Twitter a safer hub for free speech doesn\u2019t explicitly have much at all to do with crypto, but fielding a $43 billion offer will likely lend Twitter\u2019s board and shareholders a moment to consider the current state of the business and where it could be making more concerted strides.<\/p>\n

This week, Coinbase launched a beta of their NFT marketplace with partnerships with a handful of top NFT collections. They\u2019re looking to take on OpenSea, which dominates NFT sales volume, and it appears a big part of Coinbase\u2019s offering will be social features, with groundbreaking features like\u2026 commenting. I won\u2019t judge the effort too much out of the gate, but it\u2019s clear that they\u2019re mainly looking to compete on the strength of their reach.<\/p>\n

But as I think about an NFT marketplace with social at its heart and reach aplenty, I\u2019m left wondering how Twitter could possibly ignore the opportunity they have to build their own NFT storefront and OpenSea competitor.<\/p>\n

The social media giant has largely treated its crypto-enthused users as a happy little accident. Hilariously, the only way it monetizes these users \u2014 who are spending billions on NFTs which they are largely discovering and hocking via tweets \u2014 is through their $2.99 per month Twitter Blue subscription, which gives users a nice little hexagon to let their NFTs live inside. In the meantime, Twitter is basically serving as the central curation frontend for every NFT storefront and letting users leave the platform to transact before they come back to surf the timeline.<\/p>\n

It shouldn\u2019t be a huge surprise that the company is leaving money on the table. Twitter has spent the last decade or so sucking at product, but the last couple of years they\u2019ve sucked a lot less, making more aggressive monetization moves, buying startups and generally proving themselves a bit more as they look to stay competitive with rivals like Spotify and Substack.<\/p>\n

That said, Twitter has more unrealized potential than any other consumer company of its size, but its unilateral focus on publishing opportunities is causing it to miss bigger vertical opportunities that its much larger Big Tech competitors would kill for the chance at building. Facebook likely could not buy its way into dethroning OpenSea with any amount of money possible, but here Twitter is with a wide-open pathway toward web3 dominance and the company is just ignoring it.<\/p>\n

Twitter has flirted with community-specific features over the years, including their fledgling Communities product, but something like a dedicated marketplace would really shake things up. Crypto is hardly the easiest place to start \u2014 NFT spam has already proven to be a formidable opponent for Twitter \u2014 but the vertical is still ripe for the picking.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, the realest stumbling block with Twitter is the same one that gaming chat app Discord has struggled with: mainstream user perception. Twitter knows that they would infuriate just as many users as they would excite if they built out their own NFT platform. Discord tried to beta test some NFT-centric features several months ago and a short tweet showcasing an in-app wallet plug-in led to thousands of dunk tweets on the Discord CEO and a concerted pullback. This would undoubtedly be the case for Twitter, which already finds itself wandering ass-backwards into plenty of controversies, so I can understand that they might be a little wary to walk straight into more.<\/p>\n

But with a $43 billion offer on the table, it\u2019s worth questioning how a company at the center of an industry worth trillions is gleefully ignoring the chance to be indispensable to it.<\/p>\n