Meta announces Facebook and Instagram users can post NFTs from digital wallets

Facebook and Instagram users can both post nonfungible tokens, or NFTs, and digital collectibles to their accounts by linking their wallets.

In a Monday update to a May 10 blog post, Facebook’s parent company Meta said the social media platform’s roughly 2.9 billion users will have the ability to share digital collectibles and NFTs. The announcement followed an Aug. 4 update in which Meta said Instagram users across 100 countries could post digital collectibles minted on the Flow blockchain or from wallets supporting the Ethereum or Polygon blockchain to their accounts, estimated to be between 1-2 billion as of the second quarter of 2022.

“As we continue rolling out digital collectibles on Facebook and Instagram, we’ve started giving people the ability to post digital collectibles that they own across both Facebook and Instagram,” said Meta. “This will enable people to connect their digital wallets once to either app in order to share their digital collectibles across both.”

We’re introducing the ability to post digital collectibles across @facebook and @instagram. You can now connect your digital wallet to either app to share your #NFTs on both. What NFT are you excited to share? https://t.co/wa2wkWfI7p pic.twitter.com/SlpwAuY02c

Connecting digital wallets to either Facebook or Instagram seems to be limited to the apps rather than through third-party browsers. However, expanding the reach of NFTs into each and every smartphone with one of Meta’s apps installed could result in additional earnings or adoption for the social media giant. In May, Meta also filed applications with the United States Patent and Trademark Office for its namesake to be used in a crypto payments platform called Meta Pay.

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Though Meta abandoned launching its own stablecoin in February after facing pushback from regulators globally, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said there was “massive opportunity” to make up to trillions of dollars in the digital asset space as it grows. The company reported a 1% drop in revenue year over year in the second quarter of 2022.