Instagram is launching NFTs, Mark Zuckerberg confirms at SXSW

NFTs are coming to Instagram, said Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, according to Engadget.

“We’re working on bringing NFTs to Instagram in the near term,” said Zuckerberg at SXSW, where he spoke yesterday, adding that the feature will come “over the next several months.”

Discussions around Instagram getting into NFTs have been happening for several months, but this is the first time Zuckerberg has confirmed the news himself. In December, Instagram lead Adam Mosseri had said the team was “actively exploring NFTs.”

This news also confirms an earlier report by the Financial Times in January, that Facebook and Instagram might allow users to create and sell NFTs directly on the platforms, and potentially introduce NFT profile pictures. 

NFTs could eventually play a role in Meta’s eventual long-term vision of creating a virtual world for its users, Zuckerberg added.

Meta has pitched an ambitious pledge of building out a virtual and augmented reality universe described as the next phase of the internet. The firm has poured significant resources into the effort, but Meta’s Reality Labs, the team working on the metaverse, reported a loss of more than $10 billion in 2021.

It’s unclear yet how the NFTs will be integrated into Instagram in the near term. 

“I’m not ready to kind of announce exactly what that’s going to be today,” said Zuckerberg at SXSW, though he did float several ideas in this vein.

“I would hope that you know, the clothing that your avatar is wearing in the metaverse, you know, can be basically minted as an NFT and you can take it between your different places,” he said. “There’s like, a bunch of technical things that need to get worked out before that’ll really be seamless to happen.”

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