NFTs are non-fungible tokens that have provided digital art creators the ability to capitalize off of their art.
Currently, the NFT market is worth more than $40 billion, and this is projected to increase in value.
A research analyst for the Financial Times, Mason Nystrom, claimed that one major reason for the exponential growth of this sector is that buyers had the ability to purchase art that aligns with their “digital identities”.
This week, co-founder and CEO of Meta Platforms, Mark Zuckerberg announced in a video launched to Facebook that Instagram will be testing NFTs.
Within this video, Zuckerberg explained this decision is so that “creators and collectors can display their NFTs” on their individual profiles. Referring to the NFTs as “digital collectibles”, he further went on to mention that a “similar function” will be brought to Facebook as well, at some point in the future.
During this testing phase this week, only a selected number of Creators will be able to share NFTs they have either made or bought, and this can be shown in your Instagram Feed, Stories or via messages on the app.
Zuckerberg wasn’t the only one to speak out about this new exciting feature. Instagram’s head, Adam Mosseri took to Twitter to give some further insight on this next phase.
NFTs on Instagram 🎉
— Adam Mosseri (@mosseri) May 9, 2022
This week we’re beginning to test digital collectibles with a handful of US creators and collectors who will be able to share NFTs on Instagram. There will be no fees associated with posting or sharing a digital collectible on IG.
See you next week! ✌🏼 pic.twitter.com/VuJbMVSBDr
“I want to acknowledge upfront that NFTs and blockchain technologies are all about distributing trust and distributing power,” he claimed. “Instagram is fundamentally a centralized platform, so there’s a tension there. So one of the reasons why we’re starting small is we want to make sure that we can learn from the community. We want to make sure that we work out how to embrace those tenets of distributed trust and distributed power, despite the fact that we are, yes, a centralized platform.”
Going on to finally state that “NFTs specifically we think, will be interesting not only to creators who create NFT art, but also to people who want to collect it.”
META’s decision follows in the footsteps of Twitter, who recently permitted certain users of the app to import NFTs from their crypto wallets, and share them as their profile picture.
Although META’s reasoning towards this push are much larger, hoping to shift into this ‘Metaverse vision’ that the parent company of META revealed last October.
The Metaverse alludes to a futuristic perception of the internet future vision of the internet, where users can engage with one another in 3D spaces using avatars, and further promotes the concepts falling under the umbrella of augmented reality.
Are you an avid lover of NFTs? Share your thoughts with us on Instagram’s latest move via Twitter @itpliveme.