Sources close to the Meta group have revealed to the Financial Times information relating to the implementation of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) on the social networks Facebook and Instagram. It will be possible to display NFTs as profile pictures and trade them via a dedicated marketplace
Meta to get into NFTs
Social networking conglomerate Meta is reportedly developing solutions to allow its users to share their non-fungible tokens (NFTs) on its platforms, according to a Financial Times article.
At a time when NFTs are the talk of the town, the implementation of such a system could cause a real revolution. With almost 3 billion monthly active users on Facebook and 1.4 billion on Instagram, digital art could be democratised for good.
According to sources close to Meta, the teams behind Facebook and Instagram are studying a new feature that would allow NFTs to be displayed in profile pictures. The people in charge of the project would also like to set up a platform for the creation and exchange of NFTs.
This last information is not totally new since Instagram already announced that it was looking into NFTs last May. This seems to be taking shape, although Meta seems to want to remain discreet about its development.
Not a surprising announcement though
The infatuation of Mark Zuckerberg’s firm for NFTs is not new. Already in 2019, a team dedicated to blockchain was created within Facebook, which shortly afterwards led to the publication of a whitepaper for a stablecoin named “Libra”.
Some time later, the name “Libra” changed to “Diem”. The project takes on another dimension: the social network Facebook is also expected to include a digital wallet called “Novi”.
A large part of the functionality provided by Novi will be used to power NFTs,” said a source close to Meta.
Last October, Meta’s CEO announced that the wallet would support the exchange of NFTs. At the same time, Facebook changed its name to “Meta”, in direct reference to the metaverse.
This had the effect of causing the price of most tokens from metaverse projects, such as The Sandbox or Axie Infinity, to skyrocket.
180-day price evolution of the SAND token (from The Sandbox) (Source: CoinGecko)
Recent announcements regarding Meta and NFTs should be treated with caution. The various virtual art projects are still in the early stages and there may be changes both in the structuring of the projects and in the busy world of NFTs.
Not an isolated case
Meta is not the only company operating in social networks to be interested in the vast world of blockchain.
One thinks in particular of the community platform Reddit, which was beginning to think about a rewards system based on the blockchain system as early as 2020. As recently as last October, we learned that it was in the process of building a marketplace entirely dedicated to NFTs.
Finally, last December, it announced that it was participating in a $200 million investment fund alongside the Polygon sidechain to support initiatives aimed at developing Web 3.0.
An engineer working for Twitter also published a video showing a preview of what the integration of NFTs into the social network’s profile pictures would look like. This is a feature that would only be available for NFTs imported from OpenSea.
We should also note the creation in March of Artrade (ATR), a social network project based on NFTs created by a French startup and based on the Solana blockchain
