Meta is ending its support for NFTs on Facebook and Instagram less than a year after efforts to adopt “digital collectibles”, or NFTs as they are known, began. This development comes at the same time that Mark Zuckerberg laid off thousands of workers and shut down numerous projects in what the company described as its “productivity year.”
“We are reducing digital collections (NFTs) for now to focus on other ways to support creators, people and businesses,” Stephane Kasriel, Meta’s Head of Commerce and Financial Technologies, said in an update shared on Twitter. We’ve learned a lot in the metadata that we can apply to the products we continue to develop to support creators, people, and businesses in our apps.”
The company is said to instead focus on “monetization opportunities for Reels” and “Meta-wide messaging payouts”.
Kasriel did not elaborate on why Meta reversed course on NFTs, which Zuckerberg suggested could play a role in the company’s metaverse plans. “Hopefully, in the metaverse, the outfit your avatar is wearing can basically be an NFT and you can move it to different places,” he said during SXSW last year.
NFTs aren’t the only attempts at Meta that have failed. Last year, the company closed its crypto wallet Novi, which is said to be of great importance in its roadmap and also has NFT support.
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