Meta Gives Up NFT Dream

The parent company behind Facebook and Instagram has decided to sunset their NFT projects on the two social media networks. 

Meta Quits NFT

According to a recent announcement, Meta has reached the end of the road for its NFT projects on Facebook and Instagram. This means the company will no longer be testing the minting and selling of digital collectibles on Instagram. Furthermore, across the next few weeks, the company will also be discontinuing its NFT sharing feature on Facebook and Instagram. The announcement was first made by the commerce and fintech lead at Meta, Stephane Kasriel, on Twitter on Monday. 

Kasriel tweeted, 

“Across the company, we’re looking closely at what we prioritize to increase our focus. We’re winding down digital collectibles (NFTs) for now to focus on other ways to support creators, people, and businesses.”

He also claimed that the company would be focusing on other areas like messaging and monetization of Reels, which is Meta’s short video content feature on Instagram. Kasriel also revealed that the company would also look into improving the functionalities of Meta Pay and work on making smoother checkout and payout channels.  

Meta’s NFT Efforts

Soon after, Meta spokesperson Joshua Gunter penned an email confirming the news. Meta, which rebranded itself from Facebook to present a metaverse-first strategy for its business, had rushed into the space, eager to establish its identity in the digital collectibles market. In fact, it has even rolled out its NFT functionality feature to 100 countries. 

The company first released its NFT integration feature for select users on Facebook, which was soon followed up by Instagram. Soon after, the company announced a cross-posting feature for both social media platforms, which would allow all users to connect their wallets and share their NFTs on both Facebook and Instagram. Most recently, Meta decided to step deeper into the NFT sphere by deciding to launch an Instagram feature that would support an NFT marketplace to enable users to create, launch, and trade NFTs directly through the platform. 

Bear Market, Lack Of Interest For Meta NFTs

However, like other sectors of the crypto space, the NFT market has also been deeply affected by the bear cycle of 2022. With the demand for NFTs at an all-time low, Meta’s efforts failed to have any real impact. 

Meta had claimed that even if 2% of their active users had embraced NFTs, it would have helped them build a significantly stronger user base than that of OpenSea, which is the world’s largest NFT marketplace. However, after taking a huge battering due to its heavy investment in the metaverse and the lack of interest from the masses, Meta is wrapping up their NFT efforts. 

Disclaimer: This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.