Meta rolls out Instagram NFT feature in 100 countries

The social media giant will also add support for a number of Web3 wallets.

Meta to support NFTs

Despite widespread mainstream skepticism towards NFTs, Meta is doubling down on the technology.

The world’s largest social media company announced Thursday that it would expand the digital collectibles feature it recently tested on Instagram to 100 countries in Africa, Asia-Pacific, the Middle East and the Americas.

According to the announcement, the new feature will allow Instagram users to share all the NFTs they own by connecting their digital wallets to the app. The extension initially supports Ethereum, Polygon and Flow NFTs, and Instagram plans to allow users to connect to Rainbow, MetaMask, Trust Wallet, Coinbase Wallet and Dapper Wallet. The feature will have no associated fees.

Meta, the social media giant formerly known as Facebook, showed first signs that it was ready to embrace Web3 October last year when it changed its brand name in a push to help Metaverse grow. The company has sunk $10 billion into its Metaverse arm, Reality Labs, and hired 1,000 employees since, but its Web3 plans have largely been kept under wraps. The firm’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg had previously discussed that it planned to support NFTs, and in May the firm began a rollout for select creators in the United States. Mark Zuckerberg said of the update at the time:

“We don’t just build technology. We’re also trying to help foster this ecosystem, because ultimately, we’re not going to build most of the content – long term. The vast majority of it is going to be created by creators in the ecosystem. So I think a big part of what we need to do is lean into all the different ways creators can make money.”

The blog post did not confirm if Meta plans to launch the feature in Europe, or if it plans to support NFTs on other blockchains like Solana.

Meta is one of several major tech players showing interest in NFTs as the technology has grown, following the likes of Twitter and Reddit. But while many firms want to support the technology, NFTs have proven divisive as many skeptics have criticized the speculative nature of the market and the environmental impact of Proof-of-Work blockchains like Ethereum, which is where most NFTs are minted today. Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has also criticized Meta’s push to build the Metaverse, although his criticism was about the loosely defined concept of the Metaverse itself. He said last week that while he believed Metaverse would grow, companies like Meta would be “misfiring” trying to build it as long as there is no clear understanding of what people will use it for.

Disclosure: At the time of writing, the author of this piece owned ETH and several other cryptocurrencies.