blockworks.co
A limited number of users in the US can now share digital collectibles and NFTs via Instagram, Adam Mosseri, head of the social media platform, revealed in a video posted to Twitter on Monday. Initially only NFTs (non-fungible tokens) minted on the Ethereum and Polygon blockchains will be shareable on Instagram feeds, stories and via direct messages.
Mosseri said that this new functionality is an opportunity to “support creators to make a living doing what they love” while also “making Web3 technologies accessible to a much broader range of people.” He added that the company intends to learn from the community in order “to embrace those tenets of distributed trust and power” central to Web3.
NFTs on Instagram 🎉
— Adam Mosseri (@mosseri) May 9, 2022
This week we’re beginning to test digital collectibles with a handful of US creators and collectors who will be able to share NFTs on Instagram. There will be no fees associated with posting or sharing a digital collectible on IG.
See you next week! ✌🏼 pic.twitter.com/VuJbMVSBDr
He also specified that there will be no fees associated with posting or sharing an NFT, in comparison to Twitter, which only allows Twitter Blue subscribers in the US, Australia, Canada and New Zealand to set their NFTs as their profile pictures (PFP), for a fee of $2.99 a month.
As seen in the video, NFTs displayed on Instagram contain a “digital collectible” tag, which includes a description of the digital asset and details about the artist and the owner.
Among the first batch of NFT collections included in the trial are those from Boss Beauties, actor Jayden Smith, and chair of VaynerX Gary Vaynerchuck, according to TechCrunch.
Similar functionality will soon be enabled on Facebook and other Meta apps, CEO Mark Zuckerberg confirmed in a Facebook post. Meta recently announced plans to charge 47.5% on each item sold on its new Meta Quest app store, and include NFTs as part of its virtual reality platform Horizon Worlds.
While Zuckerberg previewed the news that Instagram would support NFTs “in the near term,” during a virtual appearance at the South by Southwest conference in Austin, Texas in March, he hinted that users could also soon mint their own NFTs. But for now, NFT support on Instagram is limited to sharing.