Social Media Giant to use NFTs
Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, has stated that the video and photo-sharing app Instagram intends to introduce non-fungible tokens (NFTs) to its platform. At the South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas, on Tuesday, Meta Platforms Inc. (FB) CEO Daymon John told Shark Tank’s Daymon John said the popular social media app plans to sell NFTs soon.
“Soon, we’re planning on adding NFTs to Instagram,” Zuckerberg stated.
Crypto influencer Casey Newton with 152k followers on Twitter that Zuckerberg believes users can mint their own NFTs on the platform in the coming months. Instagram, which has over a billion monthly active users, announced in December that it was looking at delivering NFT technology to a broader audience.
Instagram’s head of programming, Adam Mosseri, said of the platform, “I believe it’s a fascinating location where we can play and maybe help creators.”
Meta’s Metaverse Vision Aligns with Instagram NFTs
Instagram’s entry into NFTs aligns with Meta’s concept of merging with the metaverse, or virtual world. Facebook changed its name to Meta in October 2021 to reflect this shift in focus. Vishal Shah, the company’s head of metaverse products, indicated that Meta would enable NFTs. “This will make it easier for users to sell Limited Edition digital products like NFTs, exhibit them in their digital spaces, and even securely resell them,” he stated.
The metaverse is a virtual world that integrates social networking, online gaming, augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), and cryptocurrency to allow people to connect digitally.
Is it a Second Chance for a Crypto-Related Product?
NFTs aren’t Meta’s first foray into the cryptocurrency space. In 2019, the company planned to launch “Diem” — formerly known as “Libra” — a USD-pegged stablecoin on its platform. In-app purchases and money transfers between users would have been easier with the digital currency, eliminating the need for the old financial system. On the other hand, Meta was unable to launch Diem due to a slew of governmental roadblocks and internal divisions over the cryptocurrency’s destiny.
Diem was known as Libra when it was first released in June 2019. Its original concept was to create digital money backed by a basket of fiat currencies that could be used across the Facebook network.
Giants of Social Media Profiting from Non-Financial Transactions
Other social networking platforms have also begun to incorporate NFTs. Twitter, Inc. (TWTR) began allowing premium subscribers on iOS to upload an NFT profile photo in January, with plans to expand the feature to its Android app and website. A few weeks later, community networking site Reddit followed Twitter’s lead and announced that NFT avatars were being tested on their website.
Meanwhile, in February, pay-per-view portal OnlyFans revealed that content providers would be able to use NFT profile images created on the Ethereum blockchain. As the popularity of cryptocurrencies and digital product offers grows, social media platforms will continue to explore new methods to monetize the metaverse.
