Meta is planning to allow users to create and sell NFTs
What is all the hype about an NFT? While the definition continues to change with the times and trends, in some ways an NFT is, at heart, just a simple way to claim ownership of a digital item like a JPG or a GIF via a unique address on the blockchain.
Just when you thought the rhetoric and prices of NFTs couldn’t get any wilder, it appears according to a Financial Times article that Meta’s apps will be endorsing NFT transactions in a major way.
With users flocking from your apps for TikTok among others, Meta has a secret plan. Let’s clone NFT hype and translate it as a retention campaign to our own apps. Facebook-parent Meta is planning to enter the booming market for non-fungible tokens.
The Financial Times reported the social-media giant is planning to allow users to create and sell NFTs. I had just written a piece about how AI-generated NFTs is a sub category to its own in 2022, but now I have to proclaim 2022 the year of the bubble crash and the glorification of NFTs at the dawn of the Metaverse. There, I said it!
I find it very cringe. The plans are still in the early stages, but they will likely hinge on the company's crypto wallet Novi. Facebook previously banned crypto Ads when it was trying to clone crypto for its own grandeur.
Meta is planning a feature that would let users display NFTs on their social-media profiles, according to the Financial Times, citing several people familiar with the matter. No wonder Facebook is bleeding talent, it’s just a sign of the desperation of the times at the nascent stage of the Metaverse, you know that VR trend that went nowhere during the last ten years.
I haven’t used Instagram in years. Now they want to revive it with NFT hype? Artists, you will never have to be hungry again! The company’s Novi wallet technology would power much of the “supporting functionality,” one tipster said. Instagram is reportedly testing a way to showcase NFTs, while Meta is also said to be discussing a marketplace that would help you buy or sell these digital collectibles.
Instagram leader Adam Mosseri said in December that his social network was “actively exploring” NFTs. Did Adam mean clone NFTs? I didn’t hear him very well. A lot of companies want to milk the NFT cow, whose daughters of selfies are now memes and cartoons trapped in the Metaverse.
The reported features would be the company's first attempt to enter the growing market for NFTs, which are digital pieces of art tied to the blockchain. In 2021, the market swelled to more than $40 billion in sales, according to one estimate. I have seen reports from anywhere between $20 and $40 billion, that’s quite a wide margin eh!
It’s pretty sad to be honest, in 2022 Meta has become a warped Social media conglomerate that thinks it’s the founder of the Metaverse. What ever became of its stablecoin visions of crypto glory again? Knowing Zuck, Meta sees everyone as a threat to its platform control over the Metaverse. A cool place that’s just a way to farm more of your data for Ads.
Meta may be trying to somehow prevent third-party platforms like OpenSea’s market from gaining too strong a hold if NFTs prove to be more than a short-lived trend. Hanging out in VR worlds just seems like a dumb dream of Silicon Valley that just won’t die.
Last October Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg spoke about how the metaverse will need to support “ownership of digital goods or NFTs.” While China’s dictator wants ownership over the real world with an unlimited term, Facebook is just okay having rulership over the virtual one. What a shiny world of dictators masquerading as something else.
Meta indeed launched Novi with the help of crypto-exchange Coinbase in October last year to allow users to send and receive money in the form of a stablecoin pegged to the US dollar known as the paxos dollar, or USDP. Of course this company used to be called Facebook and its crypto attempts were called Libra, back then so long ago. I have more faith in a PayPal stable coin than I do a Facebook product.
NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, have been gaining support with other established web platforms in recent months. As has the weird moniker for crypto called “Web 3.0”, as if that sounds more trustworthy or legit.
Although NFTs are much derided for their speculative value (prices rise and fall with shocking speed) and lack of security (they’re frequently stolen despite claims by some that they guarantee ownership), these assets will become more significant if existing tech giants choose to support them. Indeed if Elon Musk can move crypto markets with a tweet, why not Zuck eh? He must really be feeling left out.
NFTs sound really Meta, and if you think about it, they deserve each other.