Mark Zuckerberg recently announced that his company plans to introduce NFTs into Instagram in the “near term.” Zuckerberg was speaking at the South by Southwest conference when he made the announcement. SXSW is an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media and music festivals and conferences that take place in mid-March in Austin, Texas.
“We’re working on bringing NFTs to Instagram in the near term,” Meta (formerly Facebook) CEO and founder said. “I’m not ready to kind of announce exactly what that’s going to be today.”
Zuckerberg was tightlipped on the details. But he characterized the integration of non-fungible tokens into the company’s photo and video sharing app as something will happen soon, TechCrunch reported.
“We are working on bringing NFTs to Instagram in the near term,” Zuckerberg said in a SXSW panel discussion with Shark Tank’s Daymond John. “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 alluded that “hopefully” in the coming months, Instagram members will be able to mint their own non-fungible tokens or NFTs within the app.
“Minting” an NFT is publishing your token on the blockchain to make it available for purchase.
Meta has been working on bringing NFTs to its platforms. Meta also owns Facebook. In January, the Financial Times reported that Meta was working on plans for both Facebook and Instagram members to be able to display NFTs on their profiles.
A month earlier in December 2021, Head of Instagram Adam Mosseri confirmed that the company was “actively exploring” NFTs. “I think it’s an interesting place that we can play and also to hopefully help creators,” Mosseri said in an Instagram story.
Those plans were already in the works: Last summer, Instagram hosted “Creator Week,” an invite-only virtual summit that the company characterized Those plans were already in the works: Last summer, Instagram hosted “Creator Week,” an invite-only virtual summit that the company characterized as a “private event for NFT creators” in its invitations as a “private event for NFT creators.”
Instagram’s push toward NFTs coincides with Meta’s long-term vision of a very profitable interconnected virtual world filled with digital products.
“I would hope that the clothing that your avatar is wearing in the Metaverse can be minted as an NFT, and you can take it between different places,” Zuckerberg said.
Read: “NFTs: Are They a Good Investment or Risky Business? How Some Black Artists Are Cashing In.”
