Uploading NFTs to Instagram...What's Next?

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg revealed that from this week, a select group of creators and innovators will soon be able to display their non-fungible tokens (NFTs). NFTs are one-of-a-kind digital assets that can be bought and sold. He then stated that a ‘similar functionality’ will also soon be available on Facebook. 

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Users will be able to post their NFTs to their feeds, messages, and stories. They will look like the existing tagged profile display, except they'll read "digital collectibles". People will be able to access owner and creator information just with a click.

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Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri declared on Monday May 9th, that the company's goal was to "help creators make a living doing what they love." He acknowledges that there are a variety of avenues for artists to make money, but they appear to be "unpredictable and changing rapidly." 

“We think one really interesting opportunity for a subset of creators is NFTs – the idea of owning a unique digital item,” he cited.

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The 'creative economy,' according to Adam, is crucial to Instagram. As a result, testing will begin this week with US creators, with mentioned names such as Gary Vee and Jaden Smith. There are currently no fees, and the supported blockchains will start with Ethereum and Polygon, with Flow and Solana integrations coming soon. Compatible wallets will be Rainbow, Metamask and Trustwallet with more joining later.

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Mosseri, on the other hand, also recognises the tension between Instagram and the decentralised Web3 world. “NFTs and blockchain technologies and Web3 more broadly are all about distributing trust, distributing power,” Mosseri stated. “But Instagram is fundamentally a centralized platform, so there’s a tension there.” Instagram have expressed that they want to learn from the community and that this move will make Web3 more accessible to a wider range of people.

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Instagram is not the only social media platform to take this route, as we experienced a similar integration of NFTs with Twitter in early January. On twitter, NFTs are displayed as hexagon-shaped profile images for their premium members.