Facebook and Instagram end NFT support

Meta is scrapping digital collectibles or non-fungible tokens (NFTs) from its social media platforms after less than a year of introducing them.

Users can no longer share, mint, or sell their NFTs on Meta’s platforms after the company announced last month it was “winding down” support for digital collectibles.

The changes took effect on April 11 and are part of Meta’s “year of efficiency” announced by CEO Mark Zuckerberg the previous month.

Meta said at the time it would be “more proactive about cutting projects that aren’t performing or may no longer be crucial.”

In addition to slashing costs, the company has been looking for alternative sources of revenue to offset the slowdown in its advertising business.

Meta will focus on “areas where we can make impact at scale,” the firm’s fintech head, Stephane Kasriel, said in a Twitter thread last month.

Announcing Meta’s move away from NFTs, he said the company would focus on messaging, monetization for its short-video function Reels, and improving Meta Pay instead.

“We’ll continue investing in fintech tools that people and businesses will need for the future,” Kasriel said.

Meta started rolling out support for NFTs last May, first allowing select creators on Instagram to post and share digital collectibles, followed by some Facebook users in June.

It was only in November when Meta announced it would let some users create NFTs on Instagram and sell them on and off the platform.

At that time the speculative crypto market was already spiralling downwards, exacerbated by the bankruptcy of FTX cryptocurrency exchange.

Any collectibles users have shared before the changes took effect will remain as posts, but with digital information and association with third-party digital wallets removed.

The contents of third-party wallets will not be affected.