Meta Announces Plans to Test NFT Integration on Instagram

On Monday, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced through a video that their company is set to test functionalities that would allow users to display NFTs on Instagram within the week, further noting that a similar feature is expected to be made available on Facebook as well. “We’re starting building for NFTs not just in our metaverse and Reality Labs work, but also across our family of apps,” he elaborated.

Instagram head Adam Mosseri, likewise, expressed enthusiasm for the initiative. “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,” tweeted the businessman.

Mosseri also noted that there is a discrepancy between the decentralized ideology of Web3 and the centralized nature of major social media platforms. With this, Instagram is looking to start its testing at a very minimal level in an effort to learn from the community. “I want to acknowledge upfront that NFTs and blockchain technologies and Web3 more broadly are all about distributing trust, distributing power. But Instagram is fundamentally a centralized platform, so there’s a tension there,” added Mosseri.

Meta spokesperson Christine Pai elaborated that this new feature will only initially support NFTs that are minted on the Ethereum and Polygon blockchains. Meanwhile, NFTs minted on Solana and Flow will most likely be integrated at a later date. Users will only be able to showcase their NFTs, however, so long as a compatible third-party wallet — such as MetaMask, Rainbow, and TrustWallet — is linked to their accounts to prove ownership.

Through its Spark AR software, Meta is also developing three-dimensional, augmented-reality NFTs which may be posted on Instagram stories. Mosseri affirmed that the platform’s move is geared to boost the visibility of NFTs and their related technologies to a wider scope of people. Despite the apparent slump in sales, Meta follows in the footsteps of Twitter and introduced NFTs into its platform earlier in January.

Sources: The Verge, CoinDesk