- Mark Zuckerberg says Instagram will add features like minting avatar clothing as NFTs
- Social platform will support both natively minted and imported NFTs
Meta CEO and cofounder Mark Zuckerberg has confirmed that the technology giant is moving forward with initiatives around non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Speaking at the South by Southwest (SXSW) conference in Austin, Texas, Zuckerberg confirmed that digital collectibles will be coming to Instagram.
He did not provide a precise launch date for the feature, but indicated it should arrive within the next few months.
The upcoming capability will likely let Instagram users display the NFTs they currently own as well as any new tokens they acquire.
“We are working to bring NFTs to Instagram in the near term,” Zuckerberg said. “I’m not ready to announce exactly what it will be today. But in the coming months, the ability to incorporate some of your NFTs — and hopefully, over time, to mint things within that environment — is something we’re working on.”
NFTs as part of the metaverse
Zuckerberg described a future where users could mint the clothing their avatars wear in the metaverse as NFTs and move those items between virtual spaces. He acknowledged, however, that significant technical challenges remain before that vision can work smoothly.
“I expect that the clothes your avatar wears in the metaverse can basically be minted as an NFT and you can take them between different places. There’s a lot of technical stuff that needs to be worked out before that actually happens seamlessly,” he said.
While Meta has previously explored blockchain-related projects, this would mark its clearest move into NFTs to date.
Past mentions were mostly unconfirmed reports, particularly amid the NFT market’s rapid growth over the past year. As a major technology company building its own metaverse, Meta was widely expected to enter the NFT space eventually.
Zuckerberg’s comments also corroborate a Financial Times report published in January. People familiar with the matter said Meta planned to create an NFT marketplace that would allow Facebook and Instagram users to mint, display, and sell digital tokens.
In December, Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri said the social platform was “actively exploring” NFTs to make them more accessible and to support creators.