Meta Platforms, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, will wind down its non-fungible token operations on both social media services, in a pull back from Web 3.0 technologies, to concentrate on other ways to expand support for creators and businesses, Meta’s head of commerce and financial technologies Stephane Kasriel said on Twitter Tuesday.
See related article: Meta working on a decentralized social media app: Moneycontrol
Fast facts
- “We’re winding down digital collectibles (NFTs) for now to focus on other ways to support creators, people, and businesses,” Kasriel wrote in a Twitter thread. Instead of NFTs, Meta is going to focus on “areas where we can make impact at scale,” Kasriel said.
- The company plans to shift investments from NFTs to its payment service Meta Pay and other features that enable creators to earn money directly on platforms, a Meta spokesperson told TechCrunch.
- Meta started experimenting with NFTs on Instagram in May last year, then expanded the NFT features on the social media platform for creators across 100 countries in August.
- However, Meta’s other Web3 endeavor to grow its metaverse platform Horizon Worlds has been unsuccessful, and the company’s chief executive Mark Zuckerberg declared that 2023 be a “year of efficiency” for the company during February’s Q4 earnings call.
- Meta has not yet responded to Forkast’s email request for comments sent Tuesday.
- Global NFT sales slumped to US$1 billion last month from US$4.3 billion in April 2022, according to Cryptoslam data.
- However, Amazon reportedly plans to launch an NFT marketplace next month, where users may be able to purchase digital tokens linked to real-world assets.
See related article: Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg is still optimistic about the metaverse