Meta Announces Long-Awaited NFT Integration With Instagram
After teasing fans in March, Instagram's parent company, Meta, officially announced NFT integration into its social media app, Instagram. With support for Facebook apparently coming soon as well.
The popular photo-sharing app will allow NFT collectors and creators to link their crypto wallets, and display verified collections, rolling out this week for select users in the United States. In the beginning, Instagram will only allow NFTs minted on Ethereum and Polygon.
Soon after Instagram will add support for NFTs minted on Solana and Flow, two other popular blockchains for NFTs. MetaMask, Rainbow, and Trust Wallet will be the three supported wallets at launch with Phantom, Coinbase Wallet, and Dapper Wallet support coming in the near future.
NFTs displayed on the platform will have a “shimmer” effect that will set them apart from other regular images uploaded to Instagram, as well as tagging both the owner and creator of the collection. Another interesting feature will be the ability to use NFTs as augmented reality (AR) stickers, but not much else was said about the
Meta’s other social media app Facebook will also support the technology according to a representative of the company. Partners in this NFT innovative include Gary Vaynerchuk and Jen Stark and the Adam Bomb Squad and Boss Beauties NFT projects.
This move follows Meta’s path to the metaverse, a move revealed last October when Facebook changed its name in the now-infamous move. The metaverse is a future version of the internet and video games all in one, a fully realized 3D world where people can interact from all over the world using either VR headsets or their computers to enter.
At the time though, it is unclear if the metaverse-centric company has any interest in adding NFTs to its future digital world. Many in the crypto industry believe this integration is essential to future metaverses’ makeup, as the transferability of NFTs will allow users to take items from one metaverse to another.
CEO of Meta Mark Zuckerburg recently went on the Impact Theory podcast and spoke on his view of NFTs assets.
"I think in a lot of experiences, especially social ones where people are getting together and want to express something about themselves, you're going to want these things to transfer,” said Zuckerberg, per quotes provided by Meta.
“I would imagine that if we make this pretty easy for it to be interoperable, then there's going to be a lot of developers [who] will choose for that to be the case, even if not everyone does,” he added. “So I think that’s going to be pretty powerful.”