Mark Zuckerberg: NFTs are Coming to Instagram ‘In The Near Term’

Instagram has plans to integrate NFTs in some form in the “near term”, possibly allowing users to mint them directly on the platform.

Speaking at SXSW, Mark Zuckerberg confirmed that the digital collectibles would come to Instagram “in the near term”.

He didn’t go into details what role NFTs would play on the platform, but hinted that people could both show off their current NFTs, and even mint new ones. He said:

“I’m not ready to kind of announce exactly what that’s going to be today. But over the next several months, the ability to bring some of your NFTs in, hopefully over time be able to mint things within that environment.”

The interest in NFTs comes as no surprise. Instagram’s parent company Facebook rebranded to “Meta” in October of last year, focusing on the growing virtual world concept called the “Metaverse”, in which NFTs and crypto will presumably be central.

Zuckerberg believes that NFTs could at least play a role in Meta’s own metaverse. He said:

“I would hope that you know, the clothing that your avatar is wearing in the metaverse, you know, can be basically minted as an NFT and you can take it between your different places.”

In January, Meta was planning to add NFTs to its developing crypto wallet Novi. Instagram head Adam Mosseri also revealed that the company was “actively exploring” NFTs back in December.

Instagram is not the only social platform to go NFT. Twitter has already integrated NFT profile pictures and Ethereum wallet connectivity for Twitter Blue.