NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, have surged in popularity in recent times. Today, the NFT market is a big one, and it is primed to grow as the hype continues.
NFTs and social media have joined paths, as was evident from Twitter’s decision to let users set an NFT as their profile picture. Granted that it was for premium users only, but the introduction of the feature opened a new path for NFTs to thrive on social media platforms and ensnare new users. Something similar, and yet unlike, may now be seen in the Metaverse, as NFTs may have found inroads into another popular social media platform – Instagram.
Something similar was echoed in Mark Zuckerberg’s words during a session at South by Southwest (SXSW) in a conversation with Daymond John. The company is working to introduce NFTs to Instagram in the near term. While he was vague on details regarding NFTs and Instagram, we get an idea about how we might see NFTs be integrated with metaverse at large.
Non-fungible tokens allow users to buy and sell ownership of unique digital items and keep track of who owns them using blockchain technology. They may contain anything digital, including drawings, animated GIFs, songs, or items in video games.
While integrating them into Instagram (which is primarily known for allowing sharing photos and videos) will not be an easy task, it is not impossible either – the integration will be on the way once Instagram’s team works out some of the technical challenges present.
“I’m not ready to announce exactly what that’s going to be today, but, over the next several months, the ability to bring some of your NFTs in, and hopefully over time be able to mint things within that environment,” Zuckerberg said in the session.
Instagram is, of course, looking forward to it, if Instagram head Adam Mosseri’s words last year were anything to go by. Back then, Mosseri had confirmed that the company had been actively exploring NFTs to bring it to the masses.
This begs the question, what will be the role of NFTs in the Metaverse, which is the apple of Meta’s eye? Zuckerberg offered an example – he hopes that the clothing our character will wear in the Metaverse will be minted as an NFT, and we can take it between different places.
Better hold your horses for this, as Zuckerberg noted that “a bunch of technical things that need to get worked out before that’ll be seamless to happen.” Additionally, they need to build the metaverse first, which still seems to be far off.
