Twitter Inc. will give away 140 new NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, the social network’s first official foray into the digital assets that have grown in popularity since the beginning of the year.

The San Francisco-based company on Wednesday posted seven different NFTs on Rarible, a third-party platform for buying and selling digital assets, and said it will give away 20 versions of each to interested users. Twitter will pick recipients for the NFTs based on the group of people who show interest in them on Twitter or Rarible, a spokeswoman said. The company is not selling them or collecting money in exchange for the images.

The company is experimenting with NFTs — art or video clips tied to a certificate of authenticity stored on the blockchain — because they have become a popular topic of conversation on Twitter. More than 29 million tweets about NFTs have been shared since the start of 2021, the spokeswoman said, adding that Twitter has no plans for other projects or features related to NFTs beyond this campaign.

That doesn’t mean the company won’t eventually push deeper into the new digital format. CEO Jack Dorsey is a staunch believer in digital assets, including cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, and he even sold a version of his first-ever tweet as an NFT earlier this year.

-- Bloomberg News