NFTs or non-fungible tokens are officially coming to Instagram later this week, as per Meta CEO Mark Zukerberg put out the first details of the launch. The CEO first confirmed that NFTs would come to Instagram back in March this year.
“This week we’re starting to test digital collectibles on Instagram so creators and collectors can display their NFTs on their profile. Similar functionality is coming to Facebook soon, along with augmented reality NFTs on Instagram Stories via Spark AR so you can place digital art into physical spaces,” Zuckerberg said in a Facebook post (via Engadget).
Meta is reportedly planning to bring NFTs to WhatsApp and Messenger. Although Zuckerberg has now formally confirmed the arrival of NFTs to the Facebook app, we don’t have a precise timeline yet.
Not too long after Zuckerberg’s post, Instagram chief Adam Mosseri chimed in with information about the rollout. “One of the reasons why we’re starting small is we want to make sure that we can learn from the community,” he said in a video.
“We want to make sure we can work out how to embrace those tenets of distributed trust and distributed power, despite the fact that we are, yes, a centralized platform.”
NFTs on Instagram 🎉
This week we’re beginning to test digital collectibles with a handful of US creators and collectors who will be able to share NFTs on Instagram. There will be no fees associated with posting or sharing a digital collectible on IG.
See you next week! ✌🏼 pic.twitter.com/VuJbMVSBDr
— Adam Mosseri (@mosseri) May 9, 2022
Meta will launch Instagram NFTs this week as a test with creators & collectors
Instagram users will be able to share their NFTs through Stories, messages, or even their feed. For now, NFTs are only available to a limited number of Instagram users in the U.S. Beginning with content creators and a small number of collectors. However, a broader expansion is undoubtedly on the horizon. Mosseri added that users wouldn’t have to pay fees related to “posting or sharing a digital collectible.”
Mosseri further said that the inclusion of NFTs on Instagram could open up a new revenue stream for some creators. This indicates that Meta could allow users to buy/sell NFTs through its platforms in the future.
This announcement comes a day after a CoinDesk report suggested that Meta would enable integration with leading NFT platforms like Ethereum, Polygon, Solana, and Flow.
It’s not surprising that Meta is jumping onboard the NFT bandwagon, particularly given its metaverse ambitions. Zuckerberg has previously discussed allowing users’ virtual clothing in the metaverse to be minted into an NFT. He claims this would allow users to use it across “different places.”
2022-05-10 15:07:40