Non fungible tokens (NFTs) could be coming to Instagram in the next several months, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said, reported CNET.
“I’m not ready to announce exactly what that’s going to be today, but over the next several months, (you will get) the ability to bring some of your NFTs in, and hopefully over time be able to mint things within that environment,” said Zuckerberg, describing the future of NFTs, or nonfungible tokens, on the photo-sharing platform.
As a matter of fact, Instagram wouldn't be the first social network to equip its platform with the trendy digital assets, which are tied to a blockchain for their identity. Micro blogging site Twitter made its entrance into NFT land in January, enabling Twitter Blue subscribers display their NFTs as profile pics.
Apart from NFTs, Zuckerberg also spoke about the metaverse and reaffirmed the company's confidence in the concept.
“The future belongs to the people who believe in it more than others,” he said.
He also talked about the need to create avatars that people can relate to and that will represent them, not just in terms of skin colour and body shape, but also the inclusion of things like wheelchairs and hearing aids.
"The question is, 'Do I see myself in this? And is this a place I want to invest?'" he said.
For Zuckerberg, the answer is clearly yes. So much so, that the company he founded — Facebook — changed its name in October to Meta. "This is the next chapter of our work, and, we believe, for the internet overall," Zuckerberg said at the Facebook Connect event at the time.
At SXSW (South by Southwest), he again noted that he believes the metaverse will end up being the most important part of what Meta does.
There's still a lengthy road ahead before these digital worlds become functional or widespread. At Mobile World Congress in February, Zuckerberg talked about how the metaverse will require connectivity infrastructure that can support the technology as it progresses, and how it's going to take collaboration with various partners to make that happen.
"It's not that useful for people to buy their clothing in one game or one experience but they can't bring it to another one," he said. "Then they might not buy as much stuff, which means that there will be a smaller creator economy for everyone."
Meta is seen to be facing the challenge of old problems in a new digital form — harassment in virtual reality.
Zuckerberg also ran through a laundry list of tech challenges being worked through, and compared the Quest headset, made by Meta's Oculus unit, to the original iPhone as an initial milestone.