Meta to Abandon NFTs on Facebook and Instagram, Prioritize Different Services

Meta Platforms, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, announced that it will wind down its non-fungible token (NFT) operations on both social media services.

This move is part of the company’s plan to pull back from Web 3.0 technologies and focus on other ways to expand support for creators and businesses.

According to Stephane Kasriel, Meta’s head of commerce and financial technologies, the company will shift investments from NFTs to its payment service Meta Pay and other features that enable creators to earn money directly on platforms. Kasriel also stated that the company plans to focus on “areas where we can make an impact at scale.”

Meta started experimenting with NFTs on Instagram in May of last year, then expanded the NFT features on the social media platform for creators across 100 countries in August.

However, Meta’s other Web3 endeavor to grow its metaverse platform Horizon Worlds has been unsuccessful, and the company’s chief executive Mark Zuckerberg declared that 2023 be a “year of efficiency” for the company during February’s Q4 earnings call.

Global NFT sales slumped to US$1 billion last month from US$4.3 billion in April 2022, according to Cryptoslam data. This decline in NFT sales may have contributed to Meta’s decision to wind down its NFT operations on Facebook and Instagram.

Meta’s decision to wind down NFT operations on Facebook and Instagram comes as Amazon reportedly plans to launch an NFT marketplace next month. Users may be able to purchase digital tokens linked to real-world assets on Amazon’s platform.