The air appears to be leaking out of the original NFT bubble, according to at least some recent data, which means that if Meta wants to join in on the tail end of the enthusiasm, it needs to unveil its NFT display features now.
As a result, it’s no surprise that Instagram’s long-in-development NFT display choices have now been released. Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri said that the company will begin testing its new NFT capabilities with a select group of creators in the United States. Integrations for Ethereum and Polygon will be available soon, with support for Flow and Solana to follow.
NFT owners will be able to authenticate their ownership by connecting their Rainbow, Trust Wallet, and MetaMask accounts.
NFTs will be visible on the main Instagram feed, within Stories, and in Direct Messages. In addition, participating accounts will get a new NFT tab with a tick in a hexagon indicating verified NFTs.
The hexagon tick indication will appear on NFT photos placed within your main post feed, as shown in this image.
Since June of last year, Instagram has been working on the feature, with early samples demonstrating how IG might not only promote your NFTs but also assist NFT sales, integrating into the larger digital products market.
Instagram Update: 90-second Reels live tests expand to more users
In this example, you can see how NFT bidding could be included in the process in the future, offering more full connectivity to the broader NFT economy.
The possibility of NFTs, as well as the enhanced role that digital commodities will play in the impending Metaverse shift, has been discussed by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, with the apparel that you adorn your digital avatars in potentially being minted as NFTs and related to your digital identity.
However, as previously said, NFT trading has been steadily declining since its first hype phase. According to The Wall Street Journal, NFT sales have dropped by 92 percent since September, while active wallets have dropped by 88 percent since November.
Because of the decreased demand, the value of some well-known NFTs has plummeted.
According to the WSJ:
“An NFT of Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey’s first tweet sold for $2.9 million in March 2021 to Sina Estavi, the CEO of Malaysia-based blockchain business Bridge Oracle. Mr. Estavi auctioned off the NFT earlier this year. He didn’t accept any bids that were more than $14,000.”
Although NFT proponents have questioned these data points, claiming that they are cherry-picked examples, the wider trend, based on industry numbers and projects, does show that NFTs are cooling off, at least in their current form.
This is most likely the most crucial point. As Zuckerberg points out, the potential of NFTs goes much beyond the current slew of cartoonish avatar photos, with tens of thousands of ‘artists’ slapping together all kinds of odd images in the hopes of making a quick buck.
Although the popularity of PFP (profile picture) projects appears to be diminishing, there will eventually be ways to exploit the back-end process of NFTs to display ownership of a wide range of digital things.
While NFT, as we know it today, appears to be on its way out, the process it embodies could very well become a critical basis for the next stage.
This is probably why Meta is pressing forward, even though people seem to be sick of them – and with so many rug pulls and rip-offs, as well as so many shoddy ‘projects’ in the area, it’s no surprise that people are turning away.
However, there is still untapped potential, despite the fact that many people are already heavily invested in the existing NFT market.
In addition to today’s announcement, Zuckerberg says that NFT display options and augmented reality NFTs for Instagram Stories will be coming shortly to Facebook.
Will this lead to more widespread adoption of NFTs, or is it simply a way for Meta to cash in on the initial hoopla before it fades?
As NFTs become more extensively available throughout Meta’s apps, we’ll soon find out.
More information on Instagram’s NFT features:
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