A restricted set of Instagram users will be allowed to show non-fungible tokens (NFT) directly on the sharing site beginning this week
Instagram will start testing non-fungible tokens (NFT) features this week, according to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who announced the news in a video on Monday. Ethereum, Polygon, Solana, and Flow are the blockchains that have been selected. According to Zuckerberg, he did not provide any information on which blockchains will be supported.
“We’re starting building for NFTs not just in our Metaverse and Reality Labs work, but also across our family of apps,” Zuckerberg said in the video. “We’re going to bring similar functionality to Facebook soon.” In addition, Zuckerberg stated that Meta would be working on augmented reality NFTs, or 3D NFTs, that can be added to Instagram Stories using Spark AR, which would be the company’s software-based augmented reality platform.
As part of a video released today, Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri stated that a select number of US users would be able to show non-fungible tokens on their feeds, stories, and messages. The details of NFTs are presented in a manner similar to those of tagged profiles and items, and they are referred to as “digital collectibles.”
Mosseri stated that the test will be limited in scope to allow Instagram to learn from the audience. He raises the issue of a conflict between giant corporations such as Instagram and the decentralized nature of Web3, maybe in an attempt to address public skepticism about a major social networking site entering the NFT space.
Adam Mosseri says: “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.”
As Mosseri points out, Instagram’s support for NFTs might be a useful tool in spreading awareness of the technology among a wider audience. Instagram isn’t the first site to do so; in January, Twitter offered NFTs as hexagon-shaped profile images on the social media network. A hexagon appears as an emblem in the corner of NFT Instagram posts, as does an emblem in the corner of other Instagram posts.
Meta’s ambitions to enable NFTs were first mentioned by Zuckerberg in March, but he didn’t provide many details about how the company planned to enter the crowded industry. Observers of non-financial tokens (NFT) have grown more hopeful that Meta may expand into the realm of digital collectibles as a result of the support exhibited by large corporations and technological platforms including as YouTube, Twitter and Reddit for cryptocurrency’s creator-driven environment. Speculation was fueled further in October when Zuckerberg revealed that Facebook had been rebranded to Meta, indicating that the company would be shifting its focus “to help bring the Metaverse to life,” all but confirming that the company would be taking a significant interest in the cryptocurrency world in the near future. Facebook has not commented on the rumors.
Alexandru Voica, Meta’s EMEA technical communications manager, went on to say that the business is starting with NFTs since they represent a significant component of the financial potential of the Metaverse, but that they are only one instance of the technologies that the company is researching in general. Meteor is investigating a wide spectrum of Web3 technology, according to Voica, since the business thinks that these technologies will lower prices, increase access, and drive innovation for artists and people all over the world.
