Mark Zuckerberg confirms Meta’s long-standing NFT plans
According to an announcement made by CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Meta, which owns Instagram, has confirmed that the popular photo-sharing app will begin testing the non-fungible token this week.
The billionaire says that creators and collectors will be able to display digital collectibles on their profiles.
Zuckerberg has also revealed that the app plans to go a step further by letting users display augmented reality NFTs on their Instagram Stories. The feature will be powered by Spark AR, the largest platform for mobile augmented reality.
According to Zuckerberg, Facebook, the social media platform owned by Meta, will roll out similar functionality in the near future.
As U.Today reports, rumors about Instagram adding support for the non-fungible token began circulating in late 2021.
In January, The Financial Times confirmed that Meta is working on a feature that will allow both Instagram and Facebook users to show off their NFTs. In addition, Facebook was reportedly working on its own marketplace for digital collectibles.On Sunday, cryptocurrency media outlet Coindesk reported that Instagram is preparing to add support for NFTs on four blockchains: Ethereum, Polygon, Flow and Solana. Meta has not yet confirmed which specific blockchain platforms its new NFT-related feature will support.
Instagram will not be the first social media platform to introduce NFT profile pictures. Popular microblogging platform Twitter rolled out similar functionality in late January.
Adult-oriented subscription-based social media platform OnlyFans made the jump to NFT profile pictures in February.
Despite growing adoption, the NFT bubble is clearly bursting, with sales dropping by a whopping 92% since last year.