Facebook and Instagram have decided to end support for NFTs after less than a year and instead focus on other ways of nurturing creatives. Reels are the focus.
Meta ends NFT support
The Facebook group Meta has announced that after only nine months the Dropping support for Non-fungible Tokens (NFTs).. NFTs are digital collectibles or certificates of authenticity that briefly experienced real hype, but were then hardly in demand. Meta first tested NFTs on Instagram in May 2020 and then rolled them out in around 100 countries in July 2022.
The group now wants to focus on other ways to support creatives. The short videos from Reels should be the focus. In addition, Meta wants to invest more in fintech tools to simplify payments via Meta Pay and to offer messaging payments (source: The Verge).
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg previously announced that the company plans to make 2023 the “Year of Efficiency.” This is another reason why the NFT integrations and discontinued the Reels Play bonus program become. Last year, Meta’s Diem project and digital wallet Novi were also discontinued.
NFTs have a pretty bad environmental record:
NFTs: The hype is over
Not least because of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s Metaverse concept, NFTs were seen as a way to own and trade digital objects in virtual worlds. However, enthusiasm for both NFTs and the Metaverse has noticeably waned since then. The NFT hype peaked about two years agowhen a single digital artwork by Mike Winkelmann sold for more than $69 million at a Christie’s auction.
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