Meta’s Chief of Commerce and Financial Technology, Stephane Kasriel, announced that his organization would be phasing down its NFTs features.
Meta will focus on fintech rather than NFTs, in a conversation on Twitter, Kastiel said:
“We’re winding down digital collectibles (NFTs) for now to focus on other ways to support creators, people, and businesses.”
While Kasriel stated that Meta wishes to encourage authors who continue to use Facebook and Instagram, it was inferred that NFT functionalities would no longer be accessible there.
He also added that the business would provide users with extra means of making money from their labor. He specifically stated that Meta hopes to provide income opportunities through streamlined Meta Pay and messaging payments, as well as on Facebook’s video platform, Reels.
The business will “continue investing in fintech tools,” he added. Commenters have questioned the company’s relatively brief presence in the NFT space, which has led to a considerable backlash against the move to end NFT support.
Facebook’s unsuccessful NFT plans
In December 2021, Meta initially made a suggestion in favor of NFTs. In May, the functionality on Instagram started to roll out, and over the ensuing months, support was gradually increased.
All U.S. users were able to share NFTs on Facebook and Instagram by September 2022 thanks to Meta. Moreover, Meta and Polygon started developing an NFT platform in May 2022.
According to claims from Polygon itself, the project, which would have allowed users to mint and sell NFTs, was still in the testing phase as of November 2022.
The project has likely been stopped or will be stopped in light of today’s news. Expectations for NFT support were also strongly related to Meta’s work in “metaverse” and virtual reality (VR).
The company’s VR unit as a whole experienced huge losses in late 2022 since those products finally did not use NFTs for their tradeable components.
The dwindling NFT market activity may be related to Facebook’s waning NFT goals. The unrelated NFT platform OpenSea only saw $750,000 in daily volume on March 13 according to statistics from DAppRadar.
Between August 2021 and May 2022, when the NFT frenzy was at its height, OpenSea routinely experienced volumes in the tens of millions of dollars.
Twitter, Facebook’s major rival, continues to encourage NFTs by allowing users to upload profile images (PFP) and connections to external marketplaces.