Snap Inc. (NYSE:SNAP), which saw its stock price decline from $14.40 on July 7 to $13.93 on July 13, is hoping new revenue-generating initiatives, including a new NFT program, will help it find favor with investors.
Here is what is happening at Snap:
- First, the company announced a new SnapChat Plus subscription for $3.99 a month. The new option is designed to give users more functionality on the Snapchat app, Snap Inc. (NYSE:SNAP) officials say.
- Then a few days later on July 13, Snap announced a new NFT program for select creators.
The new program allows the creators to display non-fungible tokens (NFTs) as lenses on Snapchat, a messaging and social networking app for smartphones that enables users to send pictures and videos to friends.
The new NFT program allows artists to show off their latest NFT creations as AR filters on the popular Snapchat app.
Snap Inc. (NYSE:SNAP) isn’t charging any fees for the creators to display their NFTs, but it is reportedly exploring ways that the artists, themselves, might be able to make money from their creations.
Despite these recent announcements, Snap Inc. (NYSE:SNAP) stock continued a five-day decline, drawing back to 13.93 (a 0.78% decline) in early trading on Wednesday.
Here’s How Snap’s New NFT Program Works
Under Snap’s new offering, creators develop NFTs outside of Snapchat using a third-party provider and then transfer them into Snapchat as lenses.
Snapchat is the latest social media company to try to use NFTs to attract more users and create a more enjoyable experience online.
For example, Twitter was one of the first social media giants to incorporate NFTs. It gave its paid users the ability to use NFTs as avatars.
Then in May, Instagram followed suit by saying it would allow users to display NFTs in their feeds, messages, and stories.
Facebook followed those actions up in June by testing similar NFT-related features for a limited number of US users.
Reddit also joined the fray by creating an NFT marketplace that can be used in the metaverse.
Whether Snap Inc’s (NYSE:SNAP) NFT program, and its ultimate expansion, are enough to produce significant additional profits and drive the company’s stock price higher remains to be seen.
NFT Excitement Appears to Be Dying Down
When NFTs first appeared, the popularity of the tokens was off the charts.
In fact, bitcoinist.com said NFTs were “some of the most popular assets around the world in 2021.”
But since that initial high point, NFT popularity has declined.
In the early days, it was not uncommon to read about NFT sales like these:
- For example, an artist known as Beeple (Mike Winkelmann) sold an NFT for $69 Million.
- An NFT of a LeBron James dunk sold for almost $400,000 on NBA Top Shot.
- The value of a Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT rose from 0.08 ETH (US$190) to $423,148 in one year
But no longer are we seeing these digital collectibles go for record prices like when they first debuted.
And that is not all that is changing. NBCnews.com reported that NFT trading is dropping fast. It said, “almost a million accounts actively bought or sold NFTs at the start of the year, but the number has since declined to 491,000.”
Snap Inc. (NYSE:SNAP) and other social media companies are clearly hoping that NFT popularity will rise again.
Snap will announce its quarterly financial results on July 21, and it will be interesting to see if these new initiatives figure into the totals and projections. This information could also help investors determine what future action to take in regards to investing in the company or not.
Featured Image: DepositPhotos © TPOphoto
