【】-囫圇吞棗網

Twitter's making it rain NFTs.

On Wednesday, the social media giant announced its intention to give away 140 non-fungible tokens hosted on the Rarible marketplace. Unlike Reddit, which just last week listed its own NFTs for sale, Twitter decided not to charge for these digital trading cards — perhaps in an unspoken acknowledgment that the longterm NFT value proposition is, at best, unclear.

With the help of Rarible, Twitter minted 20 NFTs (i.e., created ERC-721 tokens on the Ethereum blockchain describing corresponding pieces of art) for each of the seven different pieces of digital art, sporting titles like "Furry Twitter," "Vitamin T," and "Reply Guy."

Notably, those lucky enough to be gifted one of these things — the prerequisite for which (from all outside appearances) involves simply tweeting at Twitter or tweeting about the giveaway and the company DMing you directions on how to claim the NFT — don't actually own the art or any rights to it. That's because NFTs often don't actually contain any art. Instead, they typically point to or describe something that exists in the world somewhere else.

That appears to be the case here, too.

In its NFT terms of service (which is listed on the InterPlanetary File System), Twitter lays out exactly what it's giving away.

Tweet may have been deleted

"The Artwork and Brand are neither stored nor embedded in the NFT, but are accessible through the NFT," explains the TOS. "Although the NFT itself is owned by the recipient of the NFT, the Artwork and Brand associated with the NFT is licensed and not transferred or sold to such recipient."

When asked about this, a Twitter spokesperson confirmed as much. The spokesperson also added that the NFT recipient doesn't own the rights to the artwork itself, or any Twitter IP.

Mashable Light SpeedWant more out-of-this world tech, space and science stories?Sign up for Mashable's weekly Light Speed newsletter.By signing up you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.Thanks for signing up!

This latter point isn't surprising, and is similar to buying a print of a famous piece of art. You can hang the poster in your dorm room, but you can't reproduce it and sell copies. Except with Twitter's NFTs, you don't even own the poster (to continue the analogy), but rather a digital token describing the contents of the poster and where it's being kept.

Tweet may have been deleted

Importantly, while Twitter is not selling this batch of 140 NFTs, that doesn't mean it won't sell NFTs in the future. When asked about any plans to do so at a later point in time, the spokesperson replied only that the company had nothing to share.

Bloomberg reports that a Twitter spokesperson told the publication it had no NFT plans other than this campaign.

The motivation behind this NFT drop, according to the Twitter spokesperson, was simply to highlight the existing discussion of NFTs on the platform and make it easier for Twitter users to get in on the NFT fun.

The spokesperson did confirm, though, that the recipients (aka new owners) can sell the NFTs on the Rarible marketplace if they choose to do so. Which makes sense, as the Twitter NFT TOS is written in such a way as to cover "a subsequent transfer or purchase."

Tweet may have been deleted

It's worth noting that some NFTs are structured in such a way, dubbed the "royalty system," so that every future sale kicks back a percentage of that sale, in perpetuity, to the NFT's creator.

We asked Twitter if this current batch of NFTs is set up in a similar way, and the spokesperson replied that recipients can sell them or keep them, and Twitter won't take a cut.

As of the time of this writing, Twitter has given away at least a few of the NFTs, and one such example is still listed as "Not for sale." The new owner of the "Furry Twitter" NFT may just be holding onto it for a while before he re-lists it for sale, however.