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Not even Instagram can escape NFTs

Like Twitter, Instagram will now let users show off their NFTs.

The Instagram logo on a dark background

Meta is will start testing a feature which allows users to display NFTs and digital collectibles their profiles.

Image: Alexander Shatov/Unsplash

After hinting (threatening?) that Meta would bring NFTs to Instagram, Mark Zuckerberg announced on Monday that users will at long last be able to upload their NFTs to Instagram. Instagram isn't even going to charge for the feature, which is, uh, magnanimous.

The feature, which will become available to a test group of users starting this week, will let everyone know that an image that appears in the Instagram feed, in Stories or in messages is an NFT, Meta said in a Twitter post. NFTs will be labeled "digital collectibles," and more information about them can be viewed by tapping to view more (akin to a shoppable post). Zuckerberg said similar features are on the way for Facebook and potentially other Meta-owned apps as well. Instagram will support the Ethereum and Polygon blockchains to start, with the platform adding Flo wand Solana down the line, according to The Block.

"We're starting to test digital collectibles on Instagram so that creators and collectors can display their NFTs," Zuckerberg told YouTube creator Tom Bilyeu in an interview posted to Facebook Watch. "It's about expression, it's saying something about yourself."

Instagram head Adam Mosseri said in a video that the change is a way to help creators make a living by making "Web3 technologies accessible to a much broader range of people."

Zuckerberg said the company is also working on adding an augmented reality layer to NFTs, essentially creating "3D NFTs" for Instagram Stories using Spark AR, its augmented reality technology.

"You can put this kind of digital art into 3D spaces and project it onto physical spaces as well," Zuckerberg said of the project.

Twitter in January also started supporting NFTs by letting Twitter Blue subscribers upload their tokens as profile photos. Twitter denotes an NFT by displaying it as a hexagon rather than a traditional circle.

Zuckerberg hinted at bringing NFTs to Instagram during his conversation with Shark Tank investor Daymond John at South by Southwest Interactive in March, but didn't divulge many details at the time, choosing instead to focus on his grand ideas for the metaverse.

Nat Rubio-Licht

Nat Rubio-Licht is a Los Angeles-based news writer at Protocol. They graduated from Syracuse University with a degree in newspaper and online journalism in May 2020. Prior to joining the team, they worked at the Los Angeles Business Journal as a technology and aerospace reporter.

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