Exciting news from Meta’s Instagram as the platform is on course to begin offering support for Polygon, Flow, Solana, and Ethereum NFTs.
Instagram: Important to Meta’s plans
A couple of years ago, when Facebook now Meta acquired Instagram, the world speculated on how the acquisition will change the social networking world. Admittedly, Instagram has been pivotal to Meta’s (formerly Facebook) growth and global domination over the last few years.
Years ago, few people would have guessed that Instagram would help usher in a new wave of publicly accepted digital assets set to redefine how we confer value.
Unfortunately for Meta, the company’s Web3 strategies so far have been characterized by failure and unimpressive performance. From the outside looking in, the company seems a little out of touch with the realities of the NFT and Web3 world.
Meta fans, stakeholders, and investors are hoping that the company gets it right this time with its Instagram NFT strategy. Coindesk recently shared a report detailing how Instagram is ready to take the NFT space by storm by offering NFT functionalities for NFTs built on the Polygon, Solana, Flow, and Ethereum public blockchains and sidechains.
Additionally, Instagram is expected to formally announce the pilot program on Monday, May 9, 2022. Instagram plans to set its NFT offerings apart by not charging a fee to post and share NFTs; this contrasts with Twitter initially charging users for its hexagonal NFT pictures in January 2022.
IG in the NFTverse
Instagram’s NFT pilot programs come months after Mark Zuckerberg, Meta’s CEO, initially announced that the platform would support NFTs. Zuckerberg’s announcement came during 2022’s South by Southwest conference in Austin, Texas.
Instagram plans to support famous crypto wallets, including MetaMask, and the support for crypto wallets will make it easier for users to connect their wallets to Instagram. Once wallets are connected to Instagram, users will be able to prove ownership and display their NFTs on their Instagram profiles.
Due to Instagram’s size, many industry experts believe that the platform’s NFT integration will go a long way in helping the adoption of NFTs as it’ll increase the number of people able to access NFTs.
When Instagram fully integrates NFTs into its platform, it will join Twitter as the only two social media platforms to fully offer NFT functionalities. Other companies like YouTube and Reddit support full NFT integrations, with the latter recently completing its NFT integration pilot.
Meta is going all-in
Meta is an organization infatuated with the Metaverse and all it has to offer, and this company has not been shy about its plans for the Web3 space. Meta has other plans, including its proposed store in the metaverse, cross-functional integrations, and much more.
Meta knows how to move its weight around, and it’ll be intriguing to see how this step in Meta’s plan to dominate the Web3 space plays out. Will it fail, or will it lead to Meta becoming a significant player in the sector? Only time will tell; until then, we can enjoy how the story unfolds.
