Meta has been looking into NFTs, or non-fungible tokens for quite some time. This was evident when the company started testing the technology on Instagram, and two months down the line, it is bringing it to one of the other platforms owned by it – Facebook.
That’s right, the company has officially announced support for NFTs and begun testing the same with select creators in the US. These creators will be able to display their NFTs on their timelines and post them as their profile pictures under a new “digital collectibles” tab (similar to Meta’s tests on Instagram).
The development was announced by Navdeep Singh, Meta’s technical program manager, in a tweet. “We’re launching NFTs on Facebook! Excited to share what I’ve been working on with the world,” he tweeted.
Singh also provided screenshots of the digital collectibles support on Twitter, which showed that clicking on NFT posts will show the details about the NFT itself, such as the name of the collection and the creator.
This development is hardly surprising, given that Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg had hinted at the same last month. At that time, he said that the company was expanding its test of integrating NFTs with Instagram and bringing it to Facebook so that users can cross-post it on both platforms. This feature, however, is yet to be rolled out, and eventually, the feature will roll out to the rest of the world.
Based on what we know, it seems that the integration of NFTs on Facebook will include all the functionalities present in the initial tests on Instagram. The posted NFT will also not be coming with a fee.
For now, the integration of NFTs on Facebook (like Instagram) will support only those that are minted on Ethereum and Polygon blockchain networks. Going forward, Meta intends to build support for Solana and Flow NFTs, as well, and Instagram has also started testing the same.
Not only will creators be able to post their collectibles as status updates on the platform, but Facebook will also allow users to connect their cryptocurrency wallets to their Facebook profiles. NFTs can also be turned into Facebook posts, and you can react, like, comment, and share them.
Meta’s move comes at an interesting time when both the NFT and crypto markets are going through tough times. The trading volume of NFTs on the NFT marketplace OpenSea has fallen to its lowest in 11 months, and NFT sales have dropped by 150% since April.
