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Mark Zuckerberg, the founder and CEO of Facebook/Meta, has been pretty upfront about his fascination with NFTs and blockchain technologies from the very start. Metaverse, too - which inspired the umbrella company's name in the first place - is a hotly contested topic, and it's only a matter of time before Meta starts pushing in this direction.
It seems the first step towards realizing that goal will be to begin using Facebook and Instagram, two of Meta's most significant endeavors, as NFT platforms. Zuckerberg has just confirmed that the company will start testing NFTs very soon, albeit to a somewhat limited extent.
In his latest community address on Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg explained that Meta is beginning to test "digital collectibles" on Instagram (i.e. NFTs) sometime this week and that the feature would soon come out on Facebook itself as well. Zuckerberg explained that "it's about expression," citing the ability to display NFTs as the next step forward for profile customization on Meta platforms. This decision may or may not be bolstered by the fact that Facebook lost $3 billion on VR development in 2022 so far, with the company potentially hoping to recoup some losses via blockchain.
Zuckerberg also spoke about Meta's work on augmented reality technology, suggesting that users might begin seeing fully fledged 3D NFTs in the near future. These could, according to Zuckerberg, be used as part of Instagram's Stories feature to "project" them onto the real world. A potential first step towards Metaverse proper, perhaps, but tech industry veteran John Carmack already has concerns about Metaverse in its current pre-release format.
It's worth remembering that the NFT market seems to have plummeted, according to The Wall Street Journal's recent market analysis, which also took into account a variety of studies that suggested the public's interest in blockchain technology might be dropping as well. To be sure, massive web platforms such as Instagram and Facebook could reinvigorate the market, but this doesn't seem to be a given at this point in time.
The CEO at Square Enix expressed interest in NFTs not long ago, and the company pivoted heavily towards blockchain technology soon thereafter. It's therefore not impossible that the game publisher might already be looking at Instagram/Facebook NFT implementations to further its business. Whatever the case may be, Meta's early plans for the blockchain should be coming to fruition in just a few days' time.