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On Monday, Meta’s commerce and fintech lead Stephane Kasriel shared via Twitter that Meta is “winding down” its integration of NFTs to Facebook and Instagram. A spokesperson for Meta, Joshua Gunter, confirmed the decision in an email to a credible news source stating that Meta will soon stop testing the ability to mint and sell NFTs on Instagram as well as the ability to share NFTs on Facebook and Instagram.
“Across the company, we’re looking closely at what we prioritize to increase our focus,” Kasriel said. “We’re winding down digital collectibles (NFTs) for now to focus on other ways to support creators, people, and businesses.” Instead, the company is focusing on “areas where we can make an impact at scale,” like messaging and monetization on Reels and improving Meta Pay, according to The Verge.
The NFT integrations seem to be one casualty of CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s drive to make 2023 the “year of efficiency,” along with the Reels Play bonus scheme. Nevertheless, they were shut down last year along with Meta’s Novi digital wallet and Diem, a cryptocurrency it had supported.
While Meta attempts to abandon its ambition for NFTs, other companies still find flocking into a market that crumbled in 2022 and lost billions of dollars in value following stratospheric levels of excitement in early 2021. Starbucks recently sold out of a selection of 2,000 $100 NFTs in its Odyssey customer loyalty program, and Sesame Street has just announced an NFT cooperation. Reddit continues to advertise its “digital collectible” avatars which are NFTs.
