Meta announces end of NFT support on Instagram and Facebook

Meta, which operates social media such as Instagram and Facebook, has announced that it will end support for ' NFT '.

Meta winds down support for NFTs on Instagram and Facebook | TechCrunch
https://techcrunch.com/2023/03/13/meta-winds-down-support-for-nfts-on-instagram-and-facebook/

Meta gives up on NFTs for Facebook and Instagram - The Verge
https://www.theverge.com/2023/3/13/23638572/instagram-nft-meta-facebook-quits-digital-collectibles

BREAKING: Instagram is Disabling Its NFT Features
https://nftnow.com/news/breaking-instagram-is-sunsetting-digital-collectibles-nfts/

In May 2022, Meta began testing NFT functionality with select Instagram creators. After that, in June, we started testing the NFT function on Facebook for some users. Furthermore, in August, the NFT function on Instagram was expanded to users in 100 countries around the world, making it possible for many users to use the NFT function. This is just to display NFTs created or collected by users, and it seems that the function to create, purchase, and sell NFTs was implemented in November. However, the NFT creation and sales functions were also provided only to some creators.

Instagram supports NFT test, some creators can post and share NFT for free - GIGAZINE

However, in March 2023, Stephane Kasriel, head of commerce and fintech at Meta, announced that Instagram would be scaling back NFT support. Kasriel said, ``We are doing a detailed research on what to prioritize and focus across the company. We will continue to focus on other ways to do this,” he tweeted.

Some product news: across the company, we're looking closely at what we prioritize to increase our focus. We're winding down digital collectibles (NFTs) for now to focus on other ways to support creators, people, and businesses. ??[1/5]

—Stephane Kasriel (@skasriel) March 13, 2023

He continued, 'First of all, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to our partners who have joined us on this journey and are doing great work in a dynamic space. We are proud of the relationships we have built. We look forward to supporting the many NFT creators who continue to expand their work,' he said, thanking everyone involved.

First: a big Thank You to the partners who joined us on this journey and who're doing great work in a dynamic space. Proud of the relationships we built. And look forward to supporting the many NFT creators who continue using Instagram and Facebook to [2/5]

—Stephane Kasriel (@skasriel) March 13, 2023

In addition, ``In both reality and metaverse, we have learned a lot through our products that we can do for creators, users, and people who do business on apps,'' he said, releasing various features. He claims that he has gained a lot of knowledge from

We learned a ton that we'll be able to apply to products we're continuing to build to support creators, people, and businesses on our apps, both today and in the metaverse. [3/5]

—Stephane Kasriel (@skasriel) March 13, 2023

``Creating opportunities for creators and businesses to connect with fans and monetize remains a priority, and we intend to focus on areas where economies of scale can be achieved, such as messaging and reel monetization,'' he said, instead of scaling back NFT support. We promised to strive to expand functions that will lead to profits for creators and companies.

Let me be clear: creating opportunities for creators and businesses to connect with their fans and monetize remains a priority, and we're going to focus on areas where we can make impact at scale, such as messaging and monetization opps for Reels.[4 /Five]

—Stephane Kasriel (@skasriel) March 13, 2023

Finally, “And we will continue to invest in fintech tools that users and businesses will need in the future. We are investing in messaging payments,' he said, appealing to promote Meta Pay, Meta's payment service.

And we'll continue investing in fintech tools that people and businesses will need for the future. We're streamlining payments w/ Meta Pay, making checkout & payouts easier, and investing in messaging payments across Meta. [5/5]

—Stephane Kasriel (@skasriel) March 13, 2023

Overseas media TechCrunch contacted a spokesperson for Meta, who responded that Meta is shifting from NFT to investing in ``functions that allow creators to earn directly on Meta's platform,'' such as Meta Pay. that's right. In addition, a spokesperson said, 'We are testing ways to allow creators to earn advertising revenue from Instagram reels.'

The Verge has also reached out to a Meta spokesperson separately to confirm that 'the ability to create and sell NFTs on Instagram' and 'the ability to share NFTs on Instagram and Facebook' will end in the coming weeks. doing.

Meta's end of NFT support has been criticized by NFT creators, and creator Dave said, ``What a short-sighted move. It was a feature that could very well have helped offset the pitfalls of Meta is that they gave up on this before they even released it, this is a really shameful decision and a lot of really smart work by some great people It ruins it,' he tweeted.

Such a short sighted move. Inclusion of digital collectibles has so much potential to help creators engage their communities and counterbalance the pitfalls of attention based advertising economies. You guys quit before you even started. A real shame and undoing a lot of really… https: //t.co/eC9hl9cWsw

— Dave???????????? (@dave_krugman) March 13, 2023

Chris Torres, the creator of Nyan Cat, also posted an image mocking how Meta's end of NFT support is shallow thinking.

Bullish on Reddit to pick up the slack pic.twitter.com/HghXOcM8Yt

— ☆Chris☆ (@PRguitarman) March 13, 2023

Meta is struggling to build the Metaverse, but the company posted an operating loss of $4.28 billion (600 billion yen) in the Metaverse-related Reality Labs division in the fourth quarter of 2022 (October to December). . It has also been pointed out that the operating loss of this Reality Labs division may have led to a large-scale personnel reduction at Meta.

Report that Meta will cut thousands of people for the second time since November 2022 - GIGAZINE