Received 28 September 2022, accepted 26 October 2022, date of publication 4 November 2022, date of current version 11 November 2022.

Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/ACCESS.2022.3219495

What Users Tweet on NFTs: Mining Twitter to

Understand NFT-Related Concerns Using a Topic
Modeling Approach
SARAH C. MEYNS 1,2 AND FISNIK DALIPI 1
1 Departmentof Informatics, Linnaeus University, 351 95 Växjö, Sweden
2 Engaging Vulnerability Program, Uppsala University, 751 26 Uppsala, Sweden

Corresponding author: Fisnik Dalipi (fisnik.dalipi@lnu.se)

ABSTRACT Non-fungible token (NFT) trade has grown drastically over recent years. While scholarship
on the technical aspects and potential applications of NFTs has been steadily increasing, less attention has
been directed to the human perception of or attitudes toward this new type of digital asset. The aim of
this research is to investigate what concerns are expressed in relation to non-fungible tokens by those who
engage with NFTs on the social media platform Twitter. In this study, data was gathered through online social
media data mining of NFT-related posts on Twitter. Two datasets (with 18,373 and 36,354 individual tweet
records, respectively) were obtained. Topic modeling was used as a method of data analysis. Our results
reveal 19 overall themes of concerns around NFTs as expressed on Twitter, which broadly fall into two
categories: concerns about attacks and threats by third parties; and concerns about trading and the role of
marketplaces. Overall, this study offers a better understanding of the expressions of concern, uncertainty, and
the perception of possible barriers related to NFT trading. These findings contribute to theoretical insight
and can, moreover, function as a basis for developing practical design and policy interventions.

INDEX TERMS Concerns, digital asset, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), social media, topic modeling, Twitter.

I. INTRODUCTION ‘non-fungible’ [2]. Any activities or transactions involving

Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) have recently attracted consider- NFTs, such as creating, ‘minting’, purchasing, or selling, are
able media coverage and increased public interest. NFTs are equally recorded on-chain, and NFT marketplaces serve as
currently one of the key decentralized technologies and assets platforms to facilitate NFT transactions. NFTs were origi-
traded on blockchain that are popular across a wide range nally part of the Ethereum blockchain, but more and more
of industry sectors [1]. An NFT is a digital representation blockchains have added their own versions of NFTs [3].
of an asset that can be traded using digital currencies and While some have praised the emergence and growth of
is encoded in a ‘smart contract’ (i.e., a series of codes kept NFTs as a significant advancement that brings unicity and
in a decentralized ledger on the blockchain). As a unique scarcity to the digital sphere [4], others have expressed seri-
kind of crypto asset, NFTs are commonly used in areas like ous concerns, naming NFT trading hazardous, a pyramid
collectibles, art, gaming, digital image files, video, audio, scheme, or even a fraud [5]. Also, research has revealed that
as well as other non-digital, offline assets. In contrast to concepts of trust [6], risk [7] and concerns around blockchain-
fungible cryptocurrencies or conventional fiat currencies, based assets or the use of tokens [8] are to some extent
NFTs are understood to be distinctive as blockchain-based inherently characterizing NFTs.
assets because their unique identifier makes any unit pre- However, little is known about the type and scope of con-
cisely non-interchangeable with any other unit, i.e., they are cerns, or perceptions of risks or danger, that users express
in relation to this relatively new phenomenon of NFT trade.
The associate editor coordinating the review of this manuscript and The studies that explore concerns around NFTs are either
approving it for publication was Senthil Kumar . not considering the perspective of human use of NFTs at

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. For more information, see https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
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all, or they mention the possible perceived risks or dangers steps that marketplaces, individuals, and policymakers may
of NFT trade as a side note. Thus, apart from incidental take in relation to NFT trading in order to respond to existing
exceptions [9], the state-of-the-art literature lacks a focused, concerns.
in-depth investigation of the scope and character of concerns
about NFTs, as well as the meaning, importance, or context of II. RELATED WORK
these concerns for users. Therefore, research that outlines and In recent years, the emerging disciplines of sentiment anal-
provides a deeper understanding of the concerns or perceived ysis and affective computing—dealing with capturing public
dangers and risks that individuals express regarding NFTs opinion regarding political movements, commercial efforts,
would make a significant contribution to the literature. The and a variety of other social events using social media data—
research question that this study seeks to answer to fulfill its have become very popular [12], [13]. Affect theory is the
research aim is: systematic investigation and evaluation of the role of affect
• What types of concerns are expressed in relation to (sometimes used interchangeably with ‘difference making’,
non-fungible tokens (NFTs) by those who engage with ‘emotion’, or ‘sentiment’) in people’s experiences, behaviors,
NFTs on the social media platform Twitter? and social-communicative interactions [14]. Besides affect
Nowadays, social media platforms play an indispensable theory, our work also leans on media theory. Media theory is
role in understanding users’ opinions, ideas, and percep- a systematic study of ‘media’, that is, avenues of communi-
tions about various phenomena. In this study, we focused cation (or information transmission), including how the form
on exploring user-generated content from the microblogging and technology utilized in such communication affect infor-
platform Twitter, where the concentration was on users’ state- mation transfer [15, p. 1]. As techno-social systems, media
ments of perceptions and beliefs regarding NFTs, as well can both facilitate and constrain social and communication
as users’ conversations around NFTs on this platform. More activity [16, p. 37]. There has been discussion in media theory
recently, Twitter has become such an attractive platform for about how access to media that promote social networks or
NFT-based content conversations that it has introduced offi- peer-to-peer interaction, such as (micro)blogging, might be
cial support for using NFTs as Twitter profile pictures [10]. understood to have liberating, empowering, or democratizing
Our work contributes to the literature in the following possibilities. Concerns about risk or danger inside a (social)
ways: First, we enrich the literature on NFT perceptions and media platform might come to the forefront in delineating
opinions by identifying concerns around non-fungible tokens boundaries between an in-group and an out-group; between
expressed on social media. Second, we provide a better grasp those who are and are not regarded to be part of the ‘commu-
of patterns of topics expressed on social media in relation nity’. This may be accomplished by distinguishing behavior,
to NFTs through a text mining approach. Although several ‘styles of speech’, or other ‘enactments of belonging’ [17,
studies have discussed and investigated NFTs from different pp. 164, 167]. According to Macdonald [18], media dis-
perspectives [11], this is the first study to analyze the opinions courses may have a considerable influence on what is viewed
and perceptions of users on NFTs using big data capabilities. as dangerous. Or, alternatively, opinions may be expressed,
Lastly, we believe these findings may contribute to theoretical as Moores [17, pp. 150–151] indicates (for the context of
insight and can, moreover, serve as a basis for developing broadcasting), to erase worries about risk in order to convey
practical (design or policy) interventions. reassurance or exude confidence.
The rest of the article is organized as follows. In the There is a considerable amount of research on people’s
next section, we detail the state of the art of related work reactions, opinions, or attitudes towards the phenomenon of
in NFT research. Here we identify three main clusters of NFTs and trust toward various events expressed on social
concerns about NFTs and NFT trading that have thus far been media, which can typically be categorized by the type of event
identified: concerns about the general status and impact of and the purpose of the study [19]. Natural disasters, health-
NFTs; about the use and usability of NFTs; and about security related events, criminal and terrorist actions, and protests
risks. In the next section, we detail our methodology, which are all examples of such event types. Since research on
involves data gathering through social media web data mining the comparatively new phenomenon of NFTs has only been
of Twitter posts, and data analysis through topic modeling. conducted for a relatively short period of time, studies ana-
In our results section, we specify the results of the two studies lyzing people’s behavior and attitudes towards NFTs are
we conducted: one focusing on NFT marketplace-directed scarce. While the adoption of NFTs now still remains a
tweets (study 1), and the other on tweets with NFT-related niche phenomenon, as the industry grows, blockchain-based
keywords (study 2). Next, we delineate the theoretical and transactions are expected to pervade ever-larger areas of an
practical contributions that this study makes: our findings ever-growing number of lives. Understanding the perceptions
strengthen observations about concerns relating to safety and meanings that people attach to the NFT technology—
and security in NFT trade, and in addition, identify a fresh how it is viewed as well as people’s attitudes and expressed
range of concerns related to the role of NFT marketplaces, beliefs—is a critical step in building a firm comprehension of
which—to those engaging with NFTs—can function both as this phenomenon under these circumstances.
a facilitator and an arbiter of who can engage in NFT trade. From the perspective of technical aspects, NFT research
These findings can form the basis for identifying practical is focusing primarily on copyright regulations [20];

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components, protocols, standards, and desired properties

[21]; new blockchain-based protocols to trace physical goods
[22]; and the implications of NFTs on the art world [23], [24],
particularly because they allow for the sharing of secondary
sale royalties with the artist.
FIGURE 1. Schematic representation of the steps taken in this research.
When it comes to questions of perceived dangers or risk
of NFT trading, the existing body of knowledge related to
NFT is centered around three main concern clusters. First,
concern about the general status and impact of NFTs, such as
the legal status [25], [26], privacy issues [27], [28] as well as
the significant use of energy and resources needed to facilitate
blockchain-based assets [29], [30].
The second cluster revolves around the use and usability of
NFTs, including the perceived lack of practical utility [31],
[32], including the risk of losing access to one’s assets e.g.
[33], [34]; the process of creating NFTs being inefficient FIGURE 2. A hexagonal-shaped NFT Twitter profile with the OpenSea
and costly [35], [36]; and the financial concerns about high marketplace account (on the left), and a regular, round-shaped Twitter
profile image with the BakerySwap marketplace account (on the right).
market volatility [2], [37].
The third and last group of concerns is focused on the
possibility that NFT trade can involve security risks [38], [39] data source, namely Twitter through web data mining; and
and can facilitate crime or fraud [40], [41]. Whereas these (3) data preparation (or preprocessing), which included steps
studies primarily concentrate on other, technical NFT-related to integrate, clean and transform the data and handle missing
themes, the fact that they address possible concerns about values or inconsistencies, to enable processing. In the next
NFT trade might assist in identifying the appropriate terrain phases, (4) modeling and (5) evaluation, topic modeling tech-
for expressions of attitudes about perceived risks, challenges, niques are selected and applied to the data, and these models
and opportunities in trading NFTs. are (iteratively) evaluated on how well they help answer the
The above analysis indicates that the reviewed and research question. In the final phase of (6) result exploration,
presented research currently has shortcomings, as none of results are analyzed and explored to determine the most fitting
the existing studies has a direct focus on human usage, interpretation to be drawn from the models to gain valuable
perception, and experience with NFTs in social media set- insights from the research. The entire workflow is illustrated
tings. These elements are frequently addressed only in pass- in Figure 1 below.
ing in otherwise more technically oriented investigations. As a data source, the Twitter platform is characterized
More crucially, when studies explore perceived hazards or by short messaging (with a strict 280-character limit on
possible difficulties associated with the use of NFTs, the posts), and a users’ timeline consisting of posts either from
risks are typically emphasized by researchers rather than accounts that a user follows, or that are promoted, or that
conveyed by participants themselves [42], [43]. To address have been engaged with by accounts that the user follows.
these limitations, this work investigates what concerns By default, posts on a Twitter user’s timeline are sorted
are expressed by users in relation to non-fungible tokens non-chronologically, in a way that prioritizes ‘engagement’
by those who engage with NFTs on the social media cf. [16, p. 179], [45]. As Poynter [46, p. 253] already
platform Twitter, with special attention to possible con- pointed out, Twitter is used for ‘‘[a]lerting contacts to your
cerns about crime, using NFT marketplaces, and market thoughts and activities’’, and in that light, Twitter contains
dynamics. a significant volume of NFT-related posts and discussion.
Scholarship indicates there to be a significant connection
III. METHODOLOGY between blockchain-based activities and operations on social
A. PROCEDURE media e.g. [47], [48], particularly Twitter cf. [49]. More
The methodological workflow used in this research aligns strongly, in March 2022, the Twitter platform strengthened
with what Martinez-Plumed et al. [44] have identified as the its association with NFT trading; it rolled out official sup-
‘Data Science Trajectories’ (DST) framework, which allows port for using NFTs as Twitter profile pictures, which are
for more open-ended, flexible trajectories of working with differentiated from regular user profiles by having a hexago-
data, compared to standardized data mining methodologies nally shaped, rather than the standard round, profile picture
such as CRISP-DM, KDD or SEMMA. As such, it starts frame [10] (see: Figure 2).
(1) with exploring the data source, namely posts on Twitter, Twitter has in fact become such a prominent platform for
and with identifying the most relevant data to be extracted NFT-based statements and conversations, that certain devel-
in order to answer the main research question (data source opers have built plugins to block users with NFT profiles,
exploration). Next follows the phase of (2) data acquisition, for those Twitter users who do not wish to engage with
during which the required data are extracted from the external NFT-related posts or accounts [50], [51].

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B. DATA COLLECTION TABLE 1. Overview of NFT marketplaces for which interactions were
extracted.
The method for data collection used in this study consisted
of social media web data mining of posts relating to NFTs
on the social media platform Twitter (using English language
settings). Such web data mining from Twitter captures per-
ceptions and statements as they are expressed by user posts in
a natural online setting, unprompted by researcher interven-
tion. The Twitter platform was accessed using the Twitter API
(application programming interface) for academic research
[52], which responds to http queries with tweets records
containing natural language textual data and metadata in a
JSON file format. Based on the research question, it was
decided to retrieve the fields for: text (which is the body
text of a tweet), created_at (the UTC time stamp for
when a tweet was posted), id (the unique identifier of a
tweet), author_id (the unique identifier of the author of
a tweet), and conversation_id (the unique identifier of
a conversation, or tweet thread, that an individual tweet is part Table 1 contains findings from a pilot investigation we
of). The following shows a sample tweet record received in conducted during January–February 2022 that identified a set
response to a call to the Twitter API: of nine core NFT marketplaces that were well-established in
terms of the number of people trading on these platforms,
{
"text":"@opensea @opensea 1/1s collection of NFTs
or in terms of how long they have been operating [55].
waiting for collectors make me go viral To facilitate cross-comparison, NFT marketplaces that are
#opensea #NFTCommunity exclusively tied to an online game or virtual world, such as
\nhttps://t.co/T2So4623TK https://t.co/1nZdLJdEKS",
"created_at":"2022-03-15T17:55:37.000Z",
Decentraland or the Axie Marketplace associated with the
"id":"1503792047718809606", Axie Infinity game, were excluded. Multiple marketplaces
"author_id":"1491564460011667456", were selected to strengthen the validity of the findings.
"conversation_id":"1503783763419009026"
During a seven day period (9–15 March 2022, inclusive),
}
all tweets that were posted to the official Twitter accounts
The size of the population focused on in this research belonging to this selection of nine prominent NFT market-
would be found at the intersection of two groups: on the one places and that contained the term ‘NFT’ were captured.
hand, the set of people who use, engage with, or otherwise
trade in NFTs; and on the other hand, the set of people who 2) STUDY 2: NFT KEYWORD-CENTERED
use Twitter. An indication of the volume of the size of the In gathering the data for study 2, our approach was centered
former is gained from the number of unique monthly wallets on the use of specific keywords or hashtags (which, for cer-
that were used to buy or sell an NFT, which is estimated to tain users, can function as flexible channels of engagement).
have been around 363,692 in December 2021 [53]. In terms of Specifically, it concentrated on tweets that contained one or
the latter, Twitter is reported to have had around 229 million more of a set of keywords associated with potential con-
’monetizable’ daily active users’ worldwide in the first quar- cerns about danger, problems, or risks around NFT trading.
ter of 2022 [54]. (Twitter no longer reports ‘monthly active A set-up concentrating on keywords in posts can capture
users’.) Data collection was carried out in two distinct studies, any expressions of concern around NFTs that users post
using complementary data collection processes or sampling either amongst themselves, or when they are not specifically
strategies. addressing an NFT marketplace—it does not require being
tweeted toward a marketplace. A keyword query was deemed
1) STUDY 1: NFT MARKETPLACE ACCOUNT-CENTERED to be suited for this.
In acquiring the data for study 1, the focus was on set- A pilot study in February 2022 demonstrated that a search
tings where users engage with official Twitter accounts exclusively for the broad, generic keywords or hashtags
associated with prominent online NFT marketplaces. The ‘‘#NFT’’, ‘‘#NFTs’’, ‘‘non-fungible token∗’’ (or ‘‘non fun-
aim of the setup is that it enables capturing posts about gible token∗’’) would include quite a lot of noise, as well
NFTs in a manner that is closely linked to a trading as posts that do not directly concern perceived issues or
platform, yet which at the same time is neutral toward uncertainty around NFTs. Hence, through progressive, iter-
whether a post is positive or negative (and so, whether ative search for hashtags and keywords co-occurring with
it might express a concern or not). Hence, study 1 can the hashtag ‘‘#NFT’’, ‘‘#NFTs’’, ‘‘non-fungible token∗’’
help identify any concerns about NFTs that may come up (or ‘‘non fungible token∗’’) that could signal concern,
within the wider context of engaging with NFT marketplace a preliminary set of core, commonly used keywords was
accounts. identified that could form a focal point here. These include,

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TABLE 2. Overview of keywords for which posts were extracted. ‘but’) was compiled, to supplement the default stop-words list
in the MALLET (MAchine Learning for LanguagE Toolkit)
topic modeling software [58].

D. TOPIC MODELING
For the data analysis, this research used topic modeling (and
evaluation of such topic models) to identify patterns of topics
that characterize posts related to NFTs on Twitter. Topics
models can be understood as machine learning algorithms
that can be used to identify themes in large volumes of
unlabelled data [59, p. 77]. As Blank [60, p. 639] states,
the analysis method of topic modeling provides ‘‘a (rela-
tively) automated procedure to code the content of a body of
text into a (relatively) small set of substantively meaningful
categories’’, or ‘topics’. This form of semi-automated data
analysis enabled the building and evaluating models to assist
the understanding of expressions of concerns about NFTs
within larger patterns and NFT-related conversations. Topic
modeling is suited for this research as it enables a broad
understanding of the main topics present in the data and pro-
vides a basis to describe patterns in how or where these topics
for instance: #NFTscam, #NFTCommunity, #NFTfraud, come up. Topic modeling can be effective to summarize,
#NFTscamalert, #NFTartist, #ScamEconomy, #FuckNFTs, detect themes, or make relevance judgements concerning a
#ArtistTheft, #Cryptodicks, #NFTart, #NFTwats, #NFTwack, large collection of documents or records.
#Openseafraud #BinanceStopScamming. Based on consid- The current study makes use of the Java-based MALLET
erations of the degree of noise and relevance of the results software that also facilitates statistical natural language
obtained with each of the keyword searches, a longlist was processing, document classification, clustering, and other
eventually narrowed down to a selection of commonly occur- machine learning applications to text. MALLET supports
ring keywords and keyword combinations to use in the full topic modeling through Latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA)
study, as presented in Table 2. [58], [61, p. 996]. LDA is a generative probabilistic model
During a 48 hour-period (11–12 March 2022, inclusive), of a corpus that allows for dimensionality reduction for col-
for each of these selected keywords, keyword combinations, lections of discrete data, which can include text corpora such
or hashtags, all tweets that contained one or more of them as tweet records. With LDA, each tweet record is represented
were captured. as a random mixture over latent topics, while in turn, topics
are characterized by a distribution over words. Apart from
C. DATA PREPARATION the LDA method, other topic modeling methods include
In terms of data preparation (or preprocessing), to prepare Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI) [62] and Probabilistic Latent
the data for topic modeling, the data obtained through mul- Semantic Analysis (PLSA) [63]. In view of prior research,
tiple calls to the Twitter API were integrated into a single LDA performs better in big data mining than the other two
file for each study, in which each line represents a single approaches because of its three-level Hierarchical Bayesian
tweet ‘record’. To facilitate better processing, data was also model with a clearer internal structure, and its word bag
transformed: all content in the text field (the body text of model makes it easier to develop models [64].
the tweet) was converted to lowercase. Emoji (i.e. the small Based on the research question and an understanding of
icons used to represent ideas or emotions) were substituted by the data, the variables selected were the text and id values,
their Common Locale Data Repository (CLDR) Short Name, where the id is the unique tweet ID which functions as an
based on the Unicode Full Emoji List v14.0 and the Full identifier of the tweet records, and the text value contains
Emoji Modifier Sequences, v14.0 (e.g. ‘smiling-face-with- the content that the modeling was performed on. Within
sunglasses’ for the emoji) [56], [57]. The decision to MALLET, several tests were conducted in training the model
substitute, rather than strip out, emoji in this study was taken on the datasets with an output of either 10 (default), 20, 30,
because emoji have come to constitute an integral part of 40 or 50 topics. The optimal number of topics was determined
short message electronic communication, including on Twit- based on human judgment cf. [65]. Following considerations
ter. Hence, omitting this part of the tweets would risk losing of: on the one hand, sufficient breadth, so as to allow specific
a significant dimension of the content being communicated. topics to shine through, and on the other hand, avoiding topics
In addition, at this stage also an extended list with ‘stop becoming too narrow, the choice of 40 topics was made as one
words’ (i.e. words that are common in many documents, but that would strike the right balance, and so would be most use-
are less revealing of document content, such as ‘and’, ‘the’ or ful in helping answer the research question. In addition, use

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was made of an optimiser (-use-symmetric-alpha) to TABLE 3. Selected diagnostics for topics of study 1.
minimize the occurrence of thinly supported topics. Hence,
we used the MALLET topic modeling function set to an
output of 40 topics.
A number of diagnostic points can help signal topic quality.
These include, among others: document entropy, or the proba-
bility (or ‘predictability’) of a record (or document) given the
distribution of a topic over all records (where lower entropy
indicates that a topic is contained in only a few records, while
higher entropy indicates that the topic occurs across many
coherence suggests that there are topics in the set where words
records); average word length, in characters (where a higher
do tend to co-occur, yet that there are also quite a number of
average length—that is, longer words—can indicate a more
topics that display less coherence. The values for exclusivity
specific topic, and a lower average length a less specific one);
indicate that the top words in a topic do, on average, tend to
topic coherence, that is, whether words in a topic tend to
be slightly more exclusive to that topic.
co-occur (understood as the log probability that a record that
When turning to the content of each topic, it is possible—
contains a ‘higher-ranked’ word also contains at least one
based on contextual knowledge of the tweet records and close
‘lower-ranked’ word in a topic) (where smaller values, such
study of the words that compose each topic—to code each
as those close to 0, indicate greater coherence, and larger
topic and to assign it an interpretation and meaning. Through
negative values indicate lesser coherence within a topic); and
a process of initial descriptive coding and subsequent abstrac-
exclusivity, which indicates the probability of top words in
tion and assigning classification, nine overall categories or
a topic equally occurring as top words in another topic (the
themes for the topics were identified in the data of study 1
lower the exclusivity value, the more ‘exclusive’ words in a
(Table 4).
topic are) [66].
From the main themes in these topics, concerns that users
tweet to the NFT marketplace accounts can be observed for
IV. RESULTS
topics falling within the themes of ‘marketing and promotion’
Two distinct studies of NFT-related communication on
(10 topics), opportunity and urgency (8 topics), and finance
Twitter were conducted as part of this research: one con-
and trading (7 topics).
centrating on tweets directed at one or more official
Topics associated with the theme of ‘marketing and pro-
NFT-marketplace accounts (study 1), and the other focused
motion’ in many cases include a cluster of collections or
on tweets containing one or more of a selected set of key-
brand names, often accompanied by terms such as ‘awe-
words emerging as associated with NFT-related concerns
(study 2). An overview of the top 10 most frequent terms per some’, ‘amazing’, ‘wonderful’, ‘check’ or a heart ( ) or fire
topic for each of the studies can be found in the Appendix. ( ) emoji. These topics may also jump on current affairs,
potentially as a promotion tactic. For instance, the occurrence
A. STUDY 1: NFT-MARKETPLACE ACCOUNT-DIRECTED of key terms such as ‘women’, ‘femininity’ (topic 25) or
TWITTER POSTS ‘powerofwomennft’ (topic 32) may have to do with Inter-
Study 1 contains a dataset consisting of 18,373 unique tweet national Women’s Day, and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine
records (body text and metadata) of Twitter posts that were shows through with key terms such as ‘‘collection ukraine
made directly to one or more of the official Twitter accounts war peace country support donated’’ (topic 34) (which,
of a selection of the nine major NFT marketplaces on Twitter. from inspection of the data, relates to Ukraine-themed NFT
Tweet records were stored in a JSON file format. collections which promise that proceeds will be donated to
Performing topic modeling using MALLET with the support Ukrainian defense efforts).
parameters described in section 3.4 on the data of study 1 Topics around the theme of ‘finance and trading’ include
resulted in a set of 40 topics with, among others, the topic key terms that signal the buying, selling, fees or pricing
quality indicators as shown in Table 3. involved in NFT trade (such as ‘price’, ‘floor’, ‘sale’, ‘gas’,
Some of the basic diagnostics for the 40 topics generated ‘buy’, ‘fees’, ‘sold’, ‘minting’, or ‘whitelist’, in topic 17).
for the dataset of study 1 can give an indication of the Further, an equally prominent dimension that is captured
overall character of the topics found. The average document under the theme ‘opportunity and urgency’ identifies topics
entropy in this set of topics is closer to the maximum found with key terms that signal future opportunities, time pressure
in this set, suggesting that on average a topic in this set or urgency around the trade in NFTs. For example, top words
is less concentrated in just a few records, and occurs more include ‘opportunity’, ‘future’, ‘hope’, ‘miss’ (topic 9) and
spread-out across many records (which would indicate lower ‘special’, ‘limited’, ‘exclusive’ (topic 37)—suggesting both
information gain per topic). While there are instances of oncoming options and promise, and a risk of missing out.
longer words in the topics (12 characters), the average word While not containing many topics, also noteworthy in light
length is only medium-length (7 characters), which could of our research question are the themes of ‘security’ (4 topics)
indicate only medium specificity of the topics. The topic’s and ‘platform operations’ (2 topics). Security is relevant as a

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TABLE 4. Themes identified in topics of study 1. TABLE 5. Selected diagnostics for topics of study 2.

concerning NFTs. This resulted in a collection of 36,354

individual tweet records (body text and metadata), which
were stored in a JSON file format.
Performing topic modeling on the data of study 2, which
contains tweets posted with a selected set of keywords or
hashtags, equally resulted in a set of 40 topics with associated
topic quality indicators (see: Table 5).
The average document entropy in this set of topics is higher
than that identified for the topics of study 1, meaning that
on average a topic in this set is still more spread-out across
many records, rather than concentrated in only a few records.
The average word length among this set of topics is also
slightly lower (6.84 characters), which could signal a reduced
specificity of the topics. The coherence of the topics in this
set is on average lower than that of study 1, yet the top words
in each topic are somewhat more exclusive to that topic in
case of study 2.
For study 2, it is also possible to use the content of each
topic—based on background knowledge of the dataset and
close study of the words composing each topic—to assign an
interpretation and meaning. Through descriptive manual cod-
ing and subsequent abstraction and classification, ten overall
themes were identified for the topics in study 2 (Table 6).
From the main themes of these topics, concerns that indi-
viduals tweet when using these keywords can be observed for
core topics that fall within the themes of ‘crime’ (12 topics),
theme because, with top words such as ‘scam’ (in topic 36), ‘winning and giveaway’ (7 topics), and ‘trading’ (7 topics).
or ‘phishing’ and ‘scandal’ (topic 6), it signals that also when As this was a keyword-based study, it is entirely expected
people are tweeting directly at marketplace accounts, issues that the top words in the topics include some of the keywords
to do with crime or illegal dealings with NFTs are on users’ that had been selected for gathering the data. These show
radars. Further, terms such as ‘doxxed’ (referring to the action up prominently in topics within the theme of ‘crime’. Top-
of providing full transparency about the identity of the team ics identified as ‘crime’ contain words such as: ‘warning’,
behind a specific project) and ‘audit’ in topic 18 suggest that ‘rug’ (for ‘rug pull’, a type of scam in which a project is
actors tweeting at marketplace accounts proactively identify launched, hyped and abandoned as the founders run off with
salient transparency and security measures. Likewise, topics investors’ money), ‘scam’, ‘fake’, ‘stolen’, ‘avoid’ (topic 18),
within the theme of platform operations (2 topics) also show or ‘hacked’, ‘lost’, and ‘problem’ (topic 10). (Some of which,
relevant issues that users may encounter, with top terms incidentally, were not in the initial keyword search.) This
including ‘hope’, ‘join’, ‘platform’, ‘verify’ (topic 13) and points to various types of illegality and cautions being noted
‘recaptcha’ (topic 0), which draws attention to joining or in tweets within this dataset.
getting verified on a platform, as well as to steps taken during It may equally not be surprising that, as in study 1, here too,
login, such as completing a reCAPTCHA security step used top words associated with the basics of NFT trading show up
to distinguish bots from humans. in many topics. Terms such as ‘market’, ‘investors’ (topic 1),
‘mint’, ‘purchasing’, ‘exchange’’ (topic 26) or ‘liquidity’ and
B. STUDY 2: NFT KEYWORD-CENTERED TWITTER POSTS ‘trade’ (topic 38) indicate that across the data from both
Study 2 focused on keywords used on Twitter in posts studies, trade is a recurrent and strong theme that people tweet
and conversations related to uncertainty and (mis)trust about.

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TABLE 6. Themes identified in topics of study 2. contains topics with words including: ‘trust’, ‘hoping’, ‘for-
tune’ (topic 15) and ‘risk’ and ‘lost’ (topic 24), which could
identify conversations to do both with future opportunities,
as well as potential risk involved.

C. VALIDATION OF RESULTS
Steps have been taken to ensure and strengthen the validity of
the results of this study. For one, this study is upfront in that
it does not investigate NFT trading behavior itself, but con-
siders specifically perceptions of, and attitudes toward, NFT
trade as expressed on Twitter. Second, no attempt was made
to determine, for each of the tweets included in the datasets
of the two studies, what type of actual NFT-trading the tweet
author was engaged in. However, as a proxy, a manual inspec-
tion of a random sample of 1000 tweets from study 1, and
999 tweets from study 2, was carried out to determine whether
the author associated with a tweet uses the recently rolled-out
feature of having an official (hexagonal-shaped) NFT Twitter
profile, as shown in Figure 2. Given that any official NFT
profile picture is added to Twitter using an API through which
a user connects the ‘wallet’ in which they hold their crypto
assets to their Twitter profile [67], having an official NFT
Twitter profile confirms that a tweet author has access to
a wallet. With the first sample of 1000 randomly selected
tweets from study 1, a total of 919 unique tweet author_ids
were found, of which (upon inspection) 49 accounts had
been deleted or suspended since making their post. Of the
870 remaining accounts, 839 (96,43%) had a regular, round
(non-NFT) Twitter profile, while 31 (3,56%) used an official
NFT Twitter profile. With the second sample of 999 randomly
selected tweets from study 2, a total of 936 unique tweet
author_ids were found. Upon inspection, 61 of these accounts
had been deleted or suspended since their original postings.
Of the 875 remaining accounts, 853 (97,49%) had a regular,
round (non-NFT) Twitter profile, while 22 (2,51%) made use
More surprising, perhaps, is the strong prominence of top-
of the official NFT Twitter profile feature. Given that each of
ics associated with the theme of ‘winning and giveaway’. For
these samples was selected randomly, these proportions can
instance, one finds this with tokens such as ‘ ’, ‘prize’, be inferred to generalize to the whole of the datasets from
‘ ’ ‘giveaway’, ‘win’, as well as the associated terms ‘tag’ each of the respective studies.
and ‘follow’ often used to encourage participation in prize In addition, to strengthen the reliability of the results of this
draws or giveaways (topic 17). Prizes, options to win things, study, during coding, codes were regularly checked with the
or giveaways, are instruments that can be used to increase data to avoid code drift; discordant information that might
engagement or to draw people into a project or collection— not fit with the proposed diagnosis was also presented; and
which shines through in the co-occurrence of the final two the researchers used peer debriefing to contribute to greater
terms (‘tag’ and ‘follow’), which are frequently used to accuracy cf. [68, pp. 190–192].
instruct readers to tag others or to follow an account.
Containing a smaller number of topics, but potentially V. DISCUSSION
of special interest here given the research question, are the This study investigates users’ expressed concerns in relation
themes ‘security and safety’ (4 topics), ‘warning, spread the to NFTs on the social media platform Twitter. Drawing on the
word’ and ‘risk and opportunity’ (both 2 topics each). With theoretical framework of affect theory, this study illustrates
topics in the theme of security and safety, we found words that NFT can be understood to function as a form of what
such as ‘privacy’, ‘security’, but also ‘fearing’ (topic 28) and Ahmed [69] has called a ‘happy object’. In other words,
‘harm’ (topic 31). While in topics for the theme ‘warning, NFTs may be understood as (digital) objects that are thought
spread the word’, top words include: ‘careful’, ‘attack’, and to promise a particular feeling, such as the happiness or
‘ ’ (a police car light) (topic 4), signaling caution and fulfillment brought on by financial gain. This allows them to
potential danger. The theme ‘risk and opportunity’, then, circulate within a community or society as something desired;

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as objects, NFTs would be understood to represent (or, ‘point alternatively, getting the coveted ‘verified’ status check mark
towards’) a happy, pursuit-worthy condition. on one’s profile—can serve as a barrier that prevents people
While it is true that, in certain cases, NFTs might serve as from fully pursuing their happy objects. Concerns are raised
happy objects or as indicators of a desired financial situation, here as well regarding the behavior and operations of NFT
that does not indicate that they will always deliver on their marketplaces in their capacity as what Fradkin [73] refers
perceived promises—in this case, a financial success [70]. to as an ‘‘aggregator and matchmaker’’ between buyers and
Moreover, a plethora of concerns also surfaced during our sellers. A second layer of concern arises even when users
empirical study of NFT-related Twitter posts. are able to function in a marketplace without considerable
The adoption of the theoretical approach of affect and practical barriers. This is the concern that users will be
media theory [17, pp. 150–51], wherein NFTs are per- locked out of their accounts at any time (stuck completing
ceived as ‘happy objects’ and the Twitter platform as repetitive reCAPTCHA security checks), or that their partic-
a medium on which criticism, complaints, and in-group/ ular work or whole collections would be removed without
out-group divisions around these happy items can be com- warning.
municated, enables us to direct more attention toward the There are three main clusters of concerns in the exist-
identified themes with concerns that were distinguished in ing state-of-the-art literature, which were emphasized in
this study. Based on the empirical findings, we identified section 2, namely: (a) concerns about the general status
nineteen themes for the topics in studies 1 and 2, which can be and impact of NFTs; (b) concerns about the practical use
grouped into two distinct categories: concerns about attacks and usability of NFTs; and (c) concerns related to security and
and threats by third parties; and concerns about trading and fraud. Both clusters (b) and (c) may be instantly recognised
the role of marketplaces. as having parallels to the themes discovered in this research,
The first category indicates that concerns related to attacks as presented in Figure 3.
and threats by third parties have been an integral part of Most noticeably, there are similarities between the con-
the users’ posts. Recently, research conducted in the field cerns in cluster (c) regarding crime and security threats and
of NFT security has also demonstrated that NFTs are vul- the themes of ‘security’ (or ‘security and safety’), ‘crime’,
nerable to cyberattacks, breaches, as well as other forms and ‘warning, spread the word’ of this empirical study. More-
of scams and fraud [71]. In the topic modeling performed over, parallels exist between cluster (b) on the practical use
in our study, attacks can be associated with five themes. and usability of NFTs and the theme group ‘opportunity and
The theme ‘security’ was found in study 1, while ‘crime’, urgency’, given that tweets that point to NFT opportunities
‘security and safety’, ‘warning, spread the word’, and ‘risk are sometimes marked by a sense of urgency and a need to
and opportunity’ were found in study 2. In terms of concerns, act right away; tweets referring to NFT opportunities can
the ‘security’ theme and its corresponding topics can be inter- be seen as a way to make ‘‘happenings’’ that have a ‘‘halo
preted as a concern from the perspective of the interruption of of expectation and anticipation’’ [17] cf. [74]. In addition,
interaction with NFTs as ‘happy objects’. When it comes to some users’ practical use of NFTs will be hampered by the
themes identified in study 2, these would less directly point specific concerns that users expressed about the operation
to a disruption or termination of the relationship with NFTs. of marketplaces and issues with platform operations. This
Rather more indirectly, they could indicate the expectation or includes needing an invitation to set up an account; having
readiness that, in addition to the opportunities for financial no control over obtaining a ‘verified’ status; concerns about
windfall, there is also a risk of loss, as well as the willingness reCAPTCHA security measures; getting locked out of an
to share information about possible risks or dangers that could account; getting a work or collection taken down [75]. The
threaten a successful, happy outcome. These findings support themes ‘warning, spread the word’ and ‘risk and opportunity’
the study of Das et al. [72] suggesting that various potential belong to the cluster (b) due to their containing words that can
security issues revolving around NFTs can lead to significant also be linked to the practical use of NFTs [76].
financial losses. Nevertheless, there is no apparent relationship between the
In relation to the second category of trading and the topics and themes revealed in the present empirical research
role of marketplaces, from both studies, we identify the and the cluster of concerns (a), pertaining to the general status
themes ‘finance and trading’, ‘trading’, and ‘platform opera- and impact of NFTs. The general status in cluster (a) includes
tions’. Many terms or keywords related to trading appear in the legal status and obligations connected with transactions
many topics, like ‘market’, ‘investors’, ‘buying’, ‘exchange’, and contracts utilizing NFTs; possible privacy concerns of
‘mint’, ‘liquidity’ and ‘trade’, indicating that trade is a fre- blockchain-based transactions; and blockchain’s high level of
quent phenomenon that users tweet about. But when we focus energy consumption and environmental effects. The absence
on the theme of ‘platform operations’, concerns begin to of a relationship might imply that those broader legal and
surface. Here, elements of the marketplace or (intentional) environmental issues are not among the more prevalent con-
design and operational decisions taken by the NFT trading cerns of Twitter users who participate in NFT discussions.
platform trigger concerns. For the marketplaces, such as those This cluster of concerns, on the other hand, is more ubiquitous
that request an invitation or do not allow anyone to create among researchers that explore the technical and practical
an account, the process of simply joining the platform—or, applications of NFTs [29], [77], [78], [79].

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operations have not been explicitly brought up in prior stud-

ies. Hence, our findings identify this additional, specific set
of concerns about NFT use as expressed on Twitter.
Third, and surprisingly, themes from the state-of-the-art
literature on NFT use which did not obviously resurface from
the topics with concerns about NFTs as expressed on Twitter
are those about the general status and impact of NFTs [78],
viz. [88], [89]. This includes concerns such as those about
the legal status of NFTs, privacy issues, or environmental
concerns (for instance, about the use of energy and resources
to facilitate NFT trade). Hence, our study does not offer
additional support for this as constituting a major topic of
concern as expressed on Twitter among those who engage
FIGURE 3. A comparison of the findings of this research to the current
literature’s clusters of concern.
with NFTs.
In addition, our findings can form a theoretical basis for
A. THEORETICAL AND PRACTICAL CONTRIBUTIONS significant practical implications and suggestions for both
The aim of this research was to understand what types of con- NFT marketplaces and individuals who are engaged with
cerns are expressed in relation to NFTs by those who engage NFT trading, as well as for policymakers. First, with respect
with this digital asset type on the social media platform to the NFT marketplaces, the results of this research can
Twitter. As such, the present study makes a theoretical con- provide a basis for developing practical improvements, for
tribution to scholarship on NFTs by analyzing people’s per- instance in the users’ experience of trading environments,
ceptions of and attitudes towards NFTs as they are expressed as well as information or support that could be provided to
in an online, social media context—an approach that has thus users e.g. [90]. If NFT marketplaces are aware of the type
far remained scarce in existing studies. Specifically, this is, to and range of concerns that users express around NFT trade,
our knowledge, the first study with a direct focus on concerns these platforms could more easily identify pain points, make
that arise in the human usage, perception of, and experience design or operational adjustments, offer improved support to
with NFTs as people express them in social media settings. address existing uncertainties, as well as work to anticipate
The theoretical contribution of our findings stands out along potential needs of users.
three core dimensions. First, our finding of a set of concerns Second, people who are either currently trading NFTs
relating to attacks and threats by third parties—with topics or those who are considering doing so, could benefit from
including ‘security’, ‘crime’, ‘security and safety’, ‘warning, this study by learning the specific perceived obstacles or
spread the word’, and ‘risk and opportunity’, as well as topics risks associated with NFT trading that are currently being
indicating anticipation of financial risk—can be understood expressed in a social media context. Users or prospective
broadly to align with a wider cluster of concerns already users could harness these insights to inform their own deci-
identified in the wider state-of-the-art literature on NFTs, sion making about whether or not to start trading in NFTs,
namely that of concerns related to security and fraud [72], as well as about which specific perceived risks they them-
[80], [81]. Hence, on that basis, our findings strengthen those selves would be comfortable taking, and take precautions.
identifications as core concerns related to the use of NFTs, These considerations could be especially salient given the
from a research context of direct, unprompted expressions in crash in crypto-assets that had been observed in the period
a social media setting. We refer the reader to [82] for a much April–June 2022 [91].
more detailed exposition of the findings. Third, our findings could be used as a basis to inform
Second, our results also show topics with concerns related policy. As a still comparatively a new type of digital asset,
to trading and the role of marketplaces. While these could be NFT trading has, to some extent, still not fully crystallized
understood to relate, broadly, to the theme of concerns about status in terms of regulation [92], [93], [94]. Insight into
the practical use and usability of NFTs [9], e.g. [83] and [84], the range of concerns and perceived dangers—in particular
they nonetheless foreground a more specific phenomenon. those concerns relating to perceived scams, fraud, or money
The results namely indicate that some of the (intentional) laundering—that users express might be a step for policy
design and operational decisions implemented on NFT trad- makers in identifying where regulation might be needed, and
ing platforms trigger concerns among users—a point which of what sort.
has thus far not received much attention in studies of NFT
marketplaces [85], [86], [87]. From our findings, these are B. LIMITATIONS AND FUTURE RESEARCH
associated with barriers to joining or (fully) participating on Our study does have certain limitations. First, data gathering
a platform—such as invite-only access, verification, concerns for this study took place during a limited period of time. Given
about getting locked out of an account, or about collections that individual and group behavior might vary depending
being taken down. These findings are both interesting and on (atypical) specific historical events occurring during any
important, because concerns about on-platform access and selected period, there is always the risk that such data could

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FIGURE 4. Top 10 most frequent terms per topic in Study 1.

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FIGURE 4. (Continued.) Top 10 most frequent terms per topic in Study 1.

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FIGURE 4. (Continued.) Top 10 most frequent terms per topic in Study 1.

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FIGURE 4. (Continued.) Top 10 most frequent terms per topic in Study 1.

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FIGURE 4. (Continued.) Top 10 most frequent terms per topic in Study 1.

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FIGURE 5. Top 10 most frequent terms per topic in Study 2.

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FIGURE 5. (Continued.) Top 10 most frequent terms per topic in Study 2.

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FIGURE 5. (Continued.) Top 10 most frequent terms per topic in Study 2.

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FIGURE 5. (Continued.) Top 10 most frequent terms per topic in Study 2.

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FIGURE 5. (Continued.) Top 10 most frequent terms per topic in Study 2.

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be less representative of typical behavior than when a longer as a domain of potential concern. However, in addition, our
period of data gathering had been used. To mitigate this point, research found topics related to concerns about the NFT
data gathering for this study took place over multiple days, marketplaces on which NFT trading takes place themselves—
and it was ensured that those days included both weekend- a realm of concern which had thus far not received much
and weekdays. Future studies could further address this point attention in other studies. Overall, these findings enrich the
by engaging in longer-term data collection, which could literature and can be used as a basis for potential practical
potentially also reveal whether patterns of concerns develop contributions that NFT marketplaces, individuals seeking to
over time. engage in NFT trade, or policymakers may take to respond
Second, our study is limited in that the method of social to these concerns about NFTs and NFT trading that are being
media web data mining that it uses can only capture those per- expressed in a social media context. In addition, we hope our
ceptions and attitudes that users themselves express in their findings would encourage other scholars to further explore
posts. We chose this method to be able to identify concerns in NFT related concerns expressed on social media platforms
NFT-related posts and online conversations in a natural online and inspire practitioners to design sustainable regulations that
setting, without researcher intervention. However, given that dictate legal rules for the NFT market and its representatives.
participants might hold attitudes and beliefs that they do not
APPENDIX
express or do not express fully, this means that some users’ A. TOP 10 MOST FREQUENT TERMS PER TOPIC
perceptions and attitudes are likely to go undetected in this FOR STUDY 1
research. Future research could extend our findings by inter- See Figure 4.
viewing or surveying NFT users to prompt them to explicate
any concerns they might have. In doing so, a more diverse B. TOP 10 MOST FREQUENT TERMS PER
overview of concerns about NFT trading could be established. TOPIC FOR STUDY 2
Third, data gathering took place on a single social media See Figure 5.
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Art. no. 14614448221080480, doi: 10.1177/14614448221080481.

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