Mark Zuckerberg, the controversial CEO of Meta (formerly Facebook), has confirmed what was already an open secret for a long time. The manager took advantage of his intervention at SXSW (via TechCrunch) to announce that the company has plans to embrace NFTs on Instagram in the short term.
However, Mark Zuckerberg did not throw too many details during his statement. Of course, we know that the integration of non-fungible tokens is under development; although at the moment the Instagram team is focused on solving some technical problems that are on the way.
In mid-January of this year, the Financial Times magazine already commented that Meta had plans regarding NFTs. According to their report, both Facebook and Instagram would become “ a place where users can create and sell these digital assets“. Now the next destination of one of them has already been defined.
We are working to bring NFTs to Instagram soon. Today I am not ready to announce exactly what it will be, but in the coming months you will have the possibility to bring some of your NFTs. And over time you will be able to lie within that environment.
Mark Zuckerberg
The NFTs on Instagram were coming
Adam Mosseri, head of Instagram, had already hinted at the arrival of NFTs on the platform. In December 2021, the executive assured that the company was “exploring” the possibility; with the hope of being able to reach a wider audience.
I think it's an interesting place that we can explore to help creators.
Adam Mosseri Now, however, it seems that the company has already made up its mind. The next step will be to adapt this new market to a platform like Instagram.
Also, in the summer of 2021, Instagram held a “Creator Week.” In it, the company sponsored a private event for creators involved in NFTs, as announced in the invitations designed for the conference.
Mark Zuckerberg's plans with Meta and NFTs
During the nearly 50-minute conversation, Mark Zuckerberg spent most of the time talking about his metaverse. In fact, one of the points mentioned by the CEO was the ability of the metaverse to turn almost anything into a non-fungible token. Meta's digital universe is full of digital goods, and users have already begun to market homes within their virtual facilities.
I hope that the clothes your avatar wears in the Metaverse can be minted as NFTs and you can wear them between different places.
Mark ZuckerbergThus, the NFTs that we buy in the future on Instagram or Facebook could become “functional” objects within the virtual world of the company.
Of course, Meta's plans to include NFTs on Instagram and Facebook are nothing new. If you have kept following the news about the company, you will know that it was an open secret. However, many users who are against NFTs and Meta may not end up liking the news.
These two platforms are not the only ones that have thought of including NFTs among their functions. Twitter, for example, activated the use of NFT images as profile photos for those users who have a Twitter Blue subscription; the premium alternative of the social network.
YouTube, for its part, has also confirmed its interest in NFTs. In fact, it is one of the proposals that will arrive on the platform during 2022.
