Meta’s collaboration with NFTs on Facebook and Instagram is “winding down,” claimed Meta commerce and fintech lead Stephane Kasriel in a Twitter thread on Monday.
Meta will discontinue its testing of minting and selling NFTs on Instagram, as well as the ability to share NFTs on Instagram and Facebook, in the coming weeks. Kasriel said that the move is to focus on other ways to support creators, people, and businesses.
“Proud of the relationships we built. And look forward to supporting the many NFT creators who continue using Instagram and Facebook to amplify their work,” Kasriel added.
The NFT integrations appear to be one of the casualties of CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s drive to make 2023 the “year of efficiency,” along with the Reels Play bonus scheme. Yet, their demise coincides with the closures of the Meta-backed cryptocurrency Diem and Meta’s Novi digital wallet last year.
Despite Meta’s exit from NFTs, other companies are racing into a market that collapsed in 2022 and lost billions of dollars in value after reaching stratospheric levels of hype in early 2021.
Reddit continues to advertise its NFT avatars as “digital collectibles,” Starbucks just sold out a collection of 2,000 $100 NFTs in its Odyssey customer loyalty programme, and Sesame Street has just announced an NFT cooperation.
