Meta to wind down NFT support on Instagram, Facebook

• Meta is winding down its non-fungible token (NFT) project barely a year after it began the initiative
• Collapse of NFT integrations is a critical failure for Meta in Zuckerberg’s “year of efficiency”

Tech and social media giant Meta is winding down its non-fungible token (NFT) project, according to an announcement by Meta Commerce and Fintech lead Stephane Kasriel.

In the coming weeks, Meta will close its tests of minting and selling NFTs on Instagram, as well as the ability to share NFTs on Instagram and Facebook. Meta is shutting down the project only a year after announcing plans to allow digital collectibles sharing on its Instagram platform.

Last year, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that NFTs would be arriving on the Instagram app. These features were, however, only available to a small group of creators and were never widely distributed.

Meta added Ethereum, Polygon, and Flow NFT cross-posting between its Facebook and Instagram products in August to make it easier to share NFTs. Additionally, Meta also integrated a decentralized storage protocol, Arweave, into the platform in November.

“Proud of the relationships we built,” Kasriel said. He added,

“And look forward to supporting the many NFT creators who continue using Instagram and Facebook to amplify their work.”

He also thanked the partners who helped develop NFTs on Instagram.

Other digital companies are, however, racing into the NFT market, even though they lost billions of dollars in value during the NFT collapse of 2022. The failure of the NFT industry follows stratospheric levels of hype created around collectibles in early 2021. Reddit keeps promoting its NFT “digital collectible” characters even now.

Meta’s woes persist after failure of Diem, Novi

The collapse of NFT integrations is a critical failure for Meta in a year that Zuckerberg was aiming to make the “year of efficiency.” Last year, we also witnessed the collapse of the Meta-backed cryptocurrency Diem and Meta’s native digital wallet Novi.

Facebook rebranded to Meta in October 2021. At the time, its stock fell from $323.57 to $114.74 in December 2022- A drop of 60%.