The crypto market may have entered its deep midwinter, but that won’t stop mainstream tech companies from continuing to dabble in space in case things flare up again. In its latest development, Snap is exploring ways to let artists show off their digital collectibles as AR filters on Snapchat.

According to a report by Financial times, the company plans to start this experiment in August with a limited number of creators. In this test, artists can create and mint NFTs on another platform and then import them as lenses into Snapchat. FT’s report noted that Snap has no intention of taking money from creators to show off their digital collectibles — just like Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. It is rather thinking about ways in which these artists can earn money with their work.

Social media platforms have taken different approaches to NFTs by leveraging the specific dynamics of their respective platforms. Twitter was one of the first to board the NFT train by introducing the ability to set digital collectibles as avatars for its paid users.

In May, Instagram said it would allow a limited number of creators to show off NFTs in their feeds, stories and posts. Last month, Facebook began testing a similar set of features for a limited number of users in the US. Last week, Reddit launched its own NFT marketplace where you can buy digital avatars for a fixed price via fiat currency.

Snap’s closest rival in the NFT space would be Meta, as the company has already said it wants to bring them into the “real world” using its proprietary SparkAR technology. In addition, Stephane Kasriel, head of fintech at Meta, said in an interview with FT that the company aims to create a marketplace for digital collectibles which could be used in metaverse.

The NFT test leak appears to be part of a mini product sprint at Snap: It comes just days after Snapchat launched its premium subscription Snapchat Plus. With the company announcing its quarterly financial results on July 21, it’s one thing to listen to if it moves forward on any of these fronts, which would help Snap reinforce the message to investors that it’s working on more ideas to monetize it. , to complement or compensate for whatever ups and downs it may face in the advertising market.

australiabusinessblog.com has reached out to Snap with a comment and we’ll update the story if we hear anything.