Meta Winds Down NFTs for Instagram & FB; Focus Now on Meta Pay

• Meta’s Head of Commerce and Financial Technologies Stephane Kasriel posted on Twitter. 
• The company is shifting its investments toward Meta Pay and features that enable creators to earn money on Meta platforms.

Meta, in a tweet, recently announced that they are sidestepping from NFTs for Instagram and Facebook, with further layoffs on the horizon. The company’s head of commerce and financial technologies, Stephane Kasriel, discussed the same in a Twitter thread on Monday, March 13. 

Meta giving up on NFTs

This short-lived experiment is where Meta invested heavily in, and is now shifting their focus towards other Meta platforms. According to Kasriel, they learned a great deal in time. 

The knowledge gained will be applied to the current and future product lineup as the social media conglomerate continues supporting creators, businesses, and people on all platforms and the metaverse. 

Following the announcement, Meta seems ready for another round of layoffs affecting thousands of workers; they had to let go 13% of their workforce in November 2022.

It’s when CEO Mark Zuckerberg suggested in Q4 earnings that 2023 would be a “year of efficiency,” The company is obligated to cut some projects that are either not performing well or are not crucial in the long run. 

Meta and NFTs – A brief

Meta gladly opened the NFT feature for all US citizens in September 2022 after extensively testing them in beta mode with a select group of users for a few months. This announcement was seen as a boon for the NFT world by smaller blockchains like Flow and Polygon. 

Later in November, Meta announced that soon their users would be able to create their NFTs on Instagram. The creators could also sell those directly to fans on select blockchains and the most popular NFTs, blockchain Ethereum. 

Kasriel also said that the company would continue to support NFT creators who use Instagram and Facebook for promotional and networking applications, mainly to escalate their work. 

The Aftereffects of the Decision

Post the announcement, the audience has gone into a frenzy as many share concerns over social media. The majority feels that this deprioritization of NFTs could result in something terrible.

This may result in Meta’s multi-year and multi-billion-dollar endeavor of metaverse investment to dial down eventually. 

Some say that “when Meta no longer supports NFTs on their platform, one of the main ingredients connecting their social media platforms with the metaverse, how can the company’s metaverse dream survive?” 

Reality Labs, the company’s metaverse division, is believed to have lost $13.7 billion in 2022 and more than $10.2 billion in 2021.However, these huge losses could not deter Mark Zuckerberg from supporting the investment in their Q4 earnings call.

Earnings were reported on February 1, 2023, where estimated revenue was $31.551 billion, while reported was $32.165 billion, with a surprise of $613.952 million and up by 1.95%. 

Some also argued that this decision from Meta might not be as big as depicted. The reason cited was the limited impact the company could make in the metaverse space after the launch of NFT capabilities for Facebook and Instagram last year. 

Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) arena can still be considered in its early stages, but with limitless capabilities, in both the metaverse and the real world. When Meta announced their entry into the arena, many thought it would bring up the required mass adoption; sadly, their exit without creating a dent is sad. 

Nancy J. Allen is a crypto enthusiast and believes that cryptocurrencies inspire people to be their own banks and step aside from traditional monetary exchange systems. She is also intrigued by blockchain technology and its functioning.

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