- Instagram will trial NFTs in the U.S. from this week
- Creators and owners will be able to show their digital wares on the platform
- The trial will start with Ethereum and Polygon NFTs
Instagram is to trial NFTs on its platform, the company’s CEO Adam Mosseri announced yesterday, two months after Mark Zuckerberg floated the idea. Instagram will start testing NFTs with select creators in the United States, with no fees charged for posting or sharing a digital collectible on the platform. Ethereum and Polygon will be supported initially, with support for Flow and Solana coming soon. Popular wallets such as Rainbow, MetaMask, and Trust Wallet will be supported at the outset, with Coinbase, Dapper and Phantom pledged to be supported down the line.
Instagram NFT Support Was Inevitable
With Instagram being an image-focused site it was almost inevitable that NFTs would find their way to the platform, and the first steps towards this have now been taken. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg floated the idea of NFTs on Instagram in March, with creators and trial participants now able to share NFTs that they’ve made or bought.
Mosseri explained that wider functionality and access will be rolled out once Instagram gets feedback from its initial testing. In a statement, Mosseri noted that there was a conflict between the decentralized world of Web 3.0 and Instagram’s centralized platform, stating that “NFTs and blockchain technologies are all about distributing trust and distributing power, but Instagram is fundamentally a centralized platform, so there’s a tension there.”
He added that Instagram had the potential to “make web3 technology accessible to a much broader range of people” and that “NFTs specifically we think will be interesting not only to creators who create NFT art, but also to people who want to collect it.”
Kneejerk Reaction Echoes Past Integrations
The responses to Instagram adopting NFTs were, predictably, caustic, with many threatening to leave the platform:
i will ban and block anyone i see using this. and if that is no longer viable i guess i will be done with another social network
— 𝚌𝚑𝚛𝚒𝚜𝚑𝚊𝚠𝚗 _,,,^._.^,,,_ (@chrishawn) May 10, 2022
So what was the thought process here? Other companies are trying to do NFT shit and walking it back due to backlash, most recent was GFUEL I think, and actual NFT sales are flatlining. What in the world made you think this was good idea?
— Tom (@Bio_00) May 11, 2022
This is a response that has been echoed across other entities that have announced NFT integration, with the slew of negative responses even causing some to back down from their plans. It seems, however, that Instagram will be one of the ones that is not swayed by the negativity.
