By
Bhushan Akolkar
April 25th, 2024
American multinational technology company Meta Platforms has commenced the testing of its Non-Fungible Token on its flagship social media platform Facebook.
As reported by TechCrunch, the digital collectible testing on Facebook is a slow rollout, and will only permit a selected number of users in the United States to post NFTs as their profile pictures under a new tab.
The posted NFT will not come with a fee according to earlier affirmations by Meta Platforms Inc (NASDAQ: META), and will notably have all the functionalities that the initial Instagram rollout has. Just like that featured on Instagram, the NFTs hosted on Facebook will have a “digital collectibles” tag on them.
Whenever the NFTs are clicked, it will display details about the digital collectible including the name of the collection, its number in the collection as well as the name of the artist who built the collection. The update about Facebook testing NFTs comes days after the company’s co-founder and Chief Executive Officer, Mark Zuckerberg affirmed that Facebook will dive into the ecosystem soon.
As detailed by Zuckerberg at the time, he said there is an inbuilt cross-functionality between the Instagram NFTs and those hosted on Facebook. The spokesperson who spoke to TechCrunch however said that the cross-sharing feature is yet to be rolled out at this time.
Meta Platforms Leading the NFT and Web 3.0 Charge
Meta Platforms may not be a pioneer in the NFT world, but its interest and coordinated integration on its platform have positioned it as a formidable outfit championing the Web 3.0 cause.
The initial rollout of NFTs on Instagram features two of the most prominent blockchain networks including Ethereum (ETH) and Polygon (MATIC). Instagram has also started building capabilities to support digital collectibles hosted on the Solana protocol as well as the Flow blockchain. While the initially supported chains per the NFT integration were not revealed, there are indications that it may be similar to that of Instagram.
Since Meta Platforms rebranded its name from Facebook to what it is now, it reaffirmed its plans to pioneer advances in the metaverse. As a deep-pocketed tech giant, Meta Platforms has been making a lot of targeted investments into the Web3.0 world, and this includes the introduction of several Augmented Reality products to live.
According to Mark Zuckerberg, the company is working on augmented reality NFTs, or 3D NFTs, that users can bring to their Instagram Stories using Spark AR, the company’s software AR platform. The testing capabilities of the company with respect to NFTs are also expanding globally in order to give users in other regions the opportunity to harness the potential these new technologies have to offer. Global testing for NFTs on Instagram expanded to users in other parts of the world last week.
Meta Platforms said it will not add advert features on its NFTs for now, and that it will allay the fears about environmental sustainability with the acquisition of renewable energy.