There are many benefits to NFT ownership. In our article Collectors 101- The Real Benefits of NFT Ownership, we explain how NFTs enrich the creator economy, provide attractive perks to holders, strengthen digital economies, and accelerate adoption of blockchain technologies. These are compelling reasons to become a collector, but there’s one additional perk to owning NFTs that we didn’t mention – the bragging rights.
NFTs are a fairly new technology that have only just started to become mainstream, and being part of this digital revolution is something you should be proud of. Not to mention, some NFT artworks are just really freakin’ cool. So let’s explore some of the ways that you can flex your NFTs and get them the attention they really deserve.
Use It As A Profile Picture
NFT Collectible Avatars are all the rage right now. If you have one, flex it on social media by using it as your profile picture. If you have an avatar from a particularly successful project, such as the Cool Cats, Bored Ape Yacht Club, or the holy grail of NFT avatars projects – CryptoPunks, using it as your profile pic tells your followers one of two things:
- You’re so rich, you can afford to spend thousands or millions on a profile pic.
- You’re so OG in the NFT scene that you managed to get them before they blew up.
Using your NFT avatar as a profile picture is a status symbol – it signals success, either financially, or in terms of being a part of an exclusive group of NFT holders. This is something worth bragging about, like so: “Oh my avatar? That’s from this really cool project called the Illumanti. You wouldn’t have heard about it because it’s a secret. #iykyk”
Using NFT avatars as profile pictures is such a popular flex on Twitter that the social media platform is developing an NFT verification feature! Users who have an NFT avatar that has been verified will have a tiny ETH symbol on their profile pic – so you know that they actually own the NFT and didn’t just right-click and save.
Display Them Online
There’s no shortage of places online to showcase your NFTs. NFT social media platforms and virtual art galleries are great places to flex, because the people who use these platforms are there specifically to find cool NFTs – which means they’re exactly your target audience!
Showtime
Showtime is a web-based social media platform for NFTs, where you can discover and showcase your favourite crypto art. Basically, it’s the Instagram of NFTs – you can follow other users to populate your feed, you can like, share, and comment on their NFTs, and discover what’s trending on the platform.
When you sign up for an account, connect your wallet and choose the NFTs you want featured on your profile. You can also upload a profile picture, cover photo, and write about yourself. Here’s a screenshot of a profile I made today to flex my HyperLynx NFTs:
As you can see, a profile on showtime looks very similar to an NFT marketplace profile. The key difference is that it has full social media features and you can’t buy or sell NFTs on Showtime – it’s a platform made specifically for flexing!
(Actually, you can also mint NFTs via Showtime onto the Polygon network – but we won’t get into this here. For more information, visit https://tryshowtime.com/ )
Lazy
Does flexing seem like too much effort?
Don’t worry, you can use Lazy.com! The platform calls itself “the lazy way to show off your NFTs” and all you have to do is connect your wallet, and it will display a grid of all your NFTs like so:
You can share your Lazy page on social media, and there’s also a discovery page for other users to find your NFTs.
As one can gather, Lazy doesn’t offer as much functionality as Showtime. It’s a clean and easy way to flex if you don’t need social features and customization.
OnCyber
Why showcase your NFTs in 2 dimensions like a basic bitch, when you can turn your flex into a fully immersive 3D virtual experience? OnCyber is a platform that allows artists and collectors to do just that.
The GIF below shows a virtual gallery experience created in OnCyber featuring 3D NFT Avatars from the collection CyberKongz VX.
To give you an idea of how much cooler it is to showcase NFTs this way, let me show you how the 3D avatars look on a regular marketplace:
Pretty huge difference, right? Do your NFTs justice by presenting them in the most impressive way, because how you flex matters just as much as what you flex.
Display It In Your Home
Just as with traditional artworks, NFTs can be used to decorate your home and enhance your living space aesthetics. However, NFT artworks come with an added bonus – they also give you an excuse to talk about crypto to anybody who walks into your home! Help accelerate adoption of blockchain technologies by pulling people into conversations about crypto using a beautiful piece of bait – your NFT artwork.
There are a couple of ways to do this:
1. Buy NFTs with Physical Artwork
Some NFT creators will offer to ship the physical artwork or (in the case of digital art) a physical print to their buyers. Earlier this year, Chris Bellini did a drop on Mintable where the winning bidders received signed, high-quality physical art prints alongside their NFTs. His piece titled Holy Hustle is displayed at the entrance of Mintable HQ.
2. Print It Yourself
If your NFT doesn’t come with a physical piece, you can always print it out yourself. Buy NFTs that come with a high resolution file – or contact the creator to see if they’ll send you one.
Note to creators: If you don’t offer physical prints with your NFT, you could consider adding a .TIFF in your NFT’s unlockable content so that your buyers can print it out themselves and show off your artwork. To find out more about what other file formats you can offer, read this article.
3. Use A Video Frame
Showcase your animated NFTs in their full glory using a video frame! The gif above shows a Tokenframe, which is an animated frame made for NFTs. All you need to do is sign in to your wallet, connect to WiFi, and you can begin casting your NFTs!
Flexing animated NFTs IRL has never been easier, but these frames don’t come cheap – a 10” frame costs $333! Still, it’s worth the investment if you want to do your animated NFTs justice, and let’s be honest – having an entire screen dedicated to a single 10-second video loop is a flex in and of itself.
