The NFT craze has long since come to an end, but Meta has been reluctant to give it up. At least, until now. Mark Zuckerberg’s company is reversing its intention to bet on the so-called non-fungible tokens on Facebook and Instagram just a year after announcing a handful of features related to these assets on both social networks. Among them, the possibility of sharing NFTs as publications or a kind of marketplace to be able to buy and sell them.
Stephane Kasriel, director of trading and financial technologies at Meta, has confirmed on his Twitter profile the company’s intention to remove NFTs to “focus on other ways to support creators, individuals, and businesses”. Kasriel points out that Meta will focus on improving messaging, “monetization opportunities for Reels” and Meta Pay, his payment platform.
The NFTs on Facebook and Instagram, let’s remember, arrived in May 2022 as a way to support creators and allow collectors to show off the works they have previously acquired. Well, the app allowed post the assets on their profiles and through direct messages. This feature was only a small part of Meta’s plans for non-fungible tokens. The company was even working on a platform where users could sell or buy NFTs.
Meta’s “Year of Efficiency” Loads NFTs on Facebook and Instagram
The reversal of betting on NFTs on Facebook and Instagram also seems to be conditioned by Meta’s new strategy. Zuckerberg, specifically, stated a few weeks ago that 2023 would be “the year of efficiency” for the company and that their intention was to make internal moves to save costs, make decisions faster and be more productive.
One of the keys to this strategy has been to lay off more staff than initially planned. Also that of cutting back on projects whose future is uncertain. In fact, and although Meta continues to be focused on the metaverse, it is clear that the company’s desire to create a virtual world is no longer as pronounced as it was a few months ago. The multinational also is redirecting all its efforts in developing AI products to cope with the powerful models announced by Google and OpenAI.
Meanwhile, other companies continue with their commitment to NFTs despite the pronounced declineand. Twitter, for example, maintains an option for users to include these tokens as their profile image, and there are still companies launching and selling collections.