goal is his support of NFT on Facebook and Instagram less than a year after his push to adopt “digital collectibles” on his platform. The update comes as the social network has laid off thousands of workers and shut down numerous projects amid what Mark Zuckerberg calls the company’s “efficiency year.”
“We are phasing out digital collectibles (NFTs) for now to focus on other ways to support creators, individuals and businesses,” Stephane Kasriel, director of Commerce and Financial Technologies at Meta, wrote in a statement. shared on Twitter. “We’ve learned a lot that we can apply to the products we continue to develop to support creators, people, and businesses in our apps, both today and in the metaverse.” He added that the company would instead focus on “monetization opportunities for Reels” and “Meta messaging payments.”
The update comes almost exactly one year after Zuckerberg took to the SXSW stage where Instagram was working on NFT compatibility, which debuted. The company announced another significant expansion to the feature in November, when it revealed plans to allow creators to access collectibles directly on Instagram.
Kasriel didn’t explain why Meta was reversing course on NFTs, which Zuckerberg had suggested could play a role in the company “I hope you know, the clothes your avatar wears in the metaverse, you know, can basically be coined as a NFT and you can take it between your different places,” he said during his appearance at SXSW last year.
But it is not the only ambitious initiative that failed in the last year. Meta also shut down its crypto wallet, which it was once rumored to have on its roadmap, last year. The company has also cut projects with its metaverse division, Reality Labs, and its program that paid Reels creators.
