Instagram is officially an NFT Marketplace

Meta's NFT Path

Since Facebook changed the company's name to Meta in late 2021, much of the tech giant's efforts have focused on expanding its reach into the growing Web3 landscape. One of the significant initiatives that Meta undertook during 2022 was the integration of NFT into its social platforms Facebook and Instagram. Back in January of this year, there was buzz that Meta wanted to allow users to create, display and (of course) sell NFTs on its market-leading platforms.

However, before Meta officially began its NFT efforts, it had to resolve a significant issue related to NFT-related content that violated its terms of use.

Specifically, Meta started the year by banning the fake Mark Cuban-backed @NFT Instagram account. The account flooded its nearly 2 million followers with posts about dubious NFT projects. Ultimately, @NFT was banned for posting sponsored content about NFT projects without disclosing that they were paid for the posts, a violation of Instagram's terms of use and FCC guidelines.

A few months later, in March 2022, Mark Zuckerberg announced that he intended to turn Instagram into an NFT marketplace; however, he did not reveal any specific ones at the time. Finally, in the May Instagram update, Meta began testing its NFT features. Specifically, it gave select users the ability to share NFTs they created or collected on their profiles and followers' feeds. "Similar functionality is coming soon to Facebook, along with NFT augmented reality on Instagram Stories via Spark AR, so you can place digital art in physical spaces," he said in an official announcement.

In June 2022, Meta unveiled its entire NFT plan. And shortly after, in August 2022, the company launched NFT features to users in 100 countries worldwide.

However, the core features of NFT platforms have not yet been added. Specifically, it is the ability for users to create/mint, buy and sell NFTs to each other via Facebook and Instagram. Based on today's revelation, that is finally set to change. With this round of public testing, select creators will be able to sell NFTs to their Instagram audience.

What will be next?

In an effort to make the process as smooth as possible for all involved, Meta has promised that NFTs sold on its platforms will not charge any additional fees to stakeholders. Of course, this does not mean that there are no fees. Purchases made in the Instagram app on Android and iOS are subject to applicable in-app store fees. And Instagram may be adding its own fees. However, Pai has now told nft that Meta has "committed to not charging any additional fees for the sale of digital collectibles until at least 2024".

This point may be of concern to some creators. After all, Meta's previous statements indicate that it intends to significantly reduce sales of Horizon Worlds, its flagship metaverse product.

With a strong focus on ensuring the availability of NFT integrations on its platforms, it may take some time for the fruits of Meta's NFT-based initiatives to blossom. But when it does, we may see one of the most important Web2 platforms grow into one of Web3.