On Tuesday, Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Instagram’s parent company Meta, confirmed that non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, will be added to the picture and video sharing app.
The announcement was made by Zuckerberg at the SXSW conference; however, he did not specify when NFTs would be available on Instagram.
Rumors of the news have been circulating for months, with many forecasting that users will be able to mint new NFTs on Instagram and share those they already have.
During his speech, Zuckerberg expressed his hope that users will be able to mint the clothes of their digital avatars as NFTs one day but acknowledged that there is still work to be done before that can be materialized.
Of course, this is not Zuckerberg’s first foray into blockchain technology. In 2019, the CEO attempted to launch a digital currency called Libra, but the effort failed due to massive political and regulatory backlash.
Following pressure from U.S. Senators Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and Brian Schatz (D-HI), several founding members of the so-called Libra Association left the project within months of its announcement Libra, also known as Diem at the time, was no more in January 2022.
More recently, during a virtual event last October, Zuckerberg announced that Facebook would be rebranding to Meta, to bring the metaverse to life and connect people.
Investors have reacted negatively to Facebook’s rebranding and shift to the metaverse. Meta’s stock has dropped by more than 20% since the announcement.
The announcement of the Instagram NFTs on Tuesday appeared to spark a little reaction from investors. On a day when the overall market was up about the same, Meta’s shares closed up about 3%.
