Social media platform Instagram will soon allow creators to mint and sell non-fungible tokens (NFTs) through the platform to buyers both on and off Instagram using an “end-to-end toolkit,” company owner Meta Platforms Inc. (formerly Facebook) announced on Wednesday.
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Fast facts
- Using the Polygon blockchain, the feature will initially be open to a small group of creators before being rolled out to a wider user base.
- Meta said that it will not be charging fees for displaying or sharing digital collectibles until at least 2024; however, it did note that any transactions are still subject to any applicable app store fees.
- The firm also said it would cover Ethereum “gas fees” — the cost of transacting on the network — at launch, but did not specify when that policy might end.
- Instagram, which boasts more than 2 billion active users, already supports NFTs from Ethereum, Polygon, Solana and Flow blockchains to be displayed on the platform.
- This move comes as part of Meta’s broader pivot towards the Web3 ecosystem, which was best exemplified by the company’s rebranding from Facebook roughly one year ago, in which it sought to make the metaverse a central part of its business model.
- Meta’s stock has fallen about 70% in the past 12 months and finished Wednesday trading down 4.9% to US$90.54 following the NFT announcement.
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