Meta’s CEO stated “We are working to bring NFTs to Instagram in the near term,” adding that he expects NFT minting to be available in the coming months.
Mark Zuckerberg, has revealed that his video and photo sharing app, Instagram, is preparing to add non-fungible tokens (NFTs) to the platform.
Platformer newsletter writer Casey Newton, tweeted from the conference that Zuckerberg also said he expects that in the coming months Instagram users will be able to mint their own NFTs on the platform.
https://twitter.com/CaseyNewton/status/1503822144622391298?s=20&t=NbEqzi97GZOuRnbJHcVcdg
Last October, Meta changed its famous Facebook name to focus on its Metaverse-related projects. The company’s reports for the last quarter of 2021 revealed for the first time the financial details of its virtual and augmented reality research and development business, Reality Labs, showing losses of more than $10 billion. To be fair, given that Meta’s metaverse corner is not yet alive, it would be difficult to make a profit from it.
This is not Meta’s first attempt at a cryptocurrency-related project. In 2019, the company signaled plans to create “Libra” (later renamed “Diem”), a USD-parity stablecoin that failed due to lack of regulatory approval and community pushback. The project was acquired by Silvergate Capital, although some former Meta employees are trying to revive the open source stablecoin by creating a network of their own.
Social media companies have been looking to implement cryptocurrencies and NFT on their platforms following Twitter’s famous decision to add support for NFT profile pictures in January. Reddit implemented NFT avatars from its own collection, and adult site OnlyFans enabled NFT profile photos in December 2020.
Applications filed this week with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office also show that American Express is prepared to take the leap and offer virtual banking and exchange services, cryptocurrency services and enable the use of its credit cards in an NFT marketplace.
