Meta bids farewell to NFTs on Facebook, Instagram

Amid the crypto bust, Meta Platforms, formerly known as Facebook, is pulling the plug on digital collectibles or non-fungible tokens (NFTs) on its platforms less than a year after launching it. Stephane Kasriel, Meta’s fintech head, tweeted that the company is winding down digital collectibles (NFTs) for now “to focus on other ways to support creators, people, and businesses”.

Meta introduced support for creators to share NFTs on Instagram and Facebook last year, with sales of everything from cartoon apes to video clips reaching billions of dollars.

But bitcoin and other tokens took a nosedive in late 2022 after major exchange FTX went bust overnight. The crisis was aggravated by last week’s failure of three U.S. banks, two of which were crypto-centric.

“We’ll continue investing in fintech tools that people and businesses will need for the future. We’re streamlining payments w/ Meta Pay, making checkout & payouts easier, and investing in messaging payments across Meta,” Kasriel said.

Kasriel also claimed that they will continue to focus on bringing more avenues for creators on the platform. In his tweet, he said, "creating opportunities for creators and businesses to connect with their fans and monetize remains a priority, and we're going to focus on areas where we can make impact at scale, such as messaging and monetization opps for Reels."